The Basics of Link Exchanges

With the amounts and types of email that businesses receive on a daily basis, it is no surprise that some will have a difficult time deciphering the legitimate requests from the spam.  One of those requests is for link exchanges between one website and another. 

There are two different types of link exchanges.  The first type is a reciprocal link exchange, where website A links to website B, and vice versa.  The second type is a three-way link exchange, where website A links to website B, and website B gets a link back from website C. 

So how can you tell the difference between a spam request and an authentic one? 

First, you will need to check the site that you are being asked to place on your site.  Does this look like a reputable business, with a clean design and easy to find contact information?

Second, you will need to find if the reciprocating site’s link page is accessible from the homepage of their website, whether in the header, footer, sidebar menus, or in the homepage text.  Link pages, or directories, can be referred to in different ways, such as:

• Friendly Links
• Friendly Sites
• Useful Links
• Partner Links
• Link Exchange
• Link Directory
• Resources
• Resource Directory

Third, you will want to check out the page where your site’s link will appear.  If it is a three-way link exchange, this means you will want to not only check out the site you are linking to, but the site that will be linking back to you.  Sometimes, the page you are linking to will be reputable, the site linking back will be much less desirable.  The things to watch out for are:

• Link Farms - pages with hundreds or more links
• Bad neighborhoods - pages with links to sites with adult content, online pharmacies, etc.

Reviewing these basic things when receiving a linking request will assure you a quality link exchange.