by Mike Banks Valentine copyright
© 2003
It was bound to reach this point, and now I've firmly
put my foot down as of this past week and have begun
to tell all potential future link partners I won't "swap
links."
I will link, but I will not "swap links" with
anyone now. I require content in the form of articles,
press releases and news, quotes, testimonials or some
form of content.
I link from the resource box of articles or contact
info from the press releases, URL's of the honest testimonials
I receive and contributed tutorials. Now the really
bad news is that I must like the articles or content
which is contributed - and I must play the role of editor
to wannabe contributors and discard pieces that don't
meet standards I set.
What was it that ruined strict reciprocal links for
me? It happened when I received a polite link request
from an apparently well-meaning reciprocal link partner
and, as always, clicked through to his requested linking
URL. I was forwarded immediately to an affiliate program
page which this scammer hoped to slip by without
my noticing.
If I had merrily added that link to my links page, he
would have another linking partner and would increase
his link popularity for his cloaked forwarding URL.
My heart sank as I realized that yet another worthwhile
and accepted, valuable web protocol has been subverted,
perverted and is now being abused.
Reciprocal linking is dead!
Now just because one scammer has abused reciprocal links
and distorted the true purpose of this practice, does
it have to mean that everyone else will do this? No.
But it does mean that others will adopt the scam technique
and the value of links pages will drop dramatically
because webmasters will no longer trust the process.
We can't.
Scammers are a tight knit group that love to share their
scams and schemes with each other. Reciprocal linking
is definitely dead and this scam will inevitably go
viral, just as every other abuse and scheme before it
have done. Reciprocal links pages are as dead as FFA
links pages.
Google has already seen the writing on the wall and
only shows backlinks with a PageRank 4 or better. Webmasters
seeking reciprocal links have consequently adopted a
new strategy when seeking link partners. They breathlessly
announce that the page your link will go on is ranked
at PR4 at Google.
What's next? PageRank creep! Now that linking has been
perverted, Google will begin showing backlinks with
PR5 and then PR6, etc. Reciprocal link partners will
claim that your link will be placed on a PR7 page and
so on. Google essentially negated PR1, PR2 and PR3 by
showing no backlinks with those ranks from their own
index!
So after a bit of agonizing over the state of the web,
thinking about how I can't even troll through the 2500
messages that are quarantined by my SpamFilter program
because I don't have time, I decided to end link swaps.
Email used to work. FFA pages used to work. Reciprocal
links pages used to work. Free classified ads used to
work.
What still works? Content works and I am reluctantly
going to insist on content from anyone who wants links
from my sites or client sites. I've got to like what
the contributor has to say and I've got to agree with
their article before I'll publish it and link back to
them from that article, press release or news.
I've even drafted an email note to use as a template
for response to those requesting reciprocal links:
I'd be happy to link
to you, but my current method of linking is through
articles, not links pages. If you'd like to contribute
an article for publication, I'd be glad to link to
you through the resource box.
Take a look at those articles I currently use and
send your own articles for linking consideration.
Be sure to include a resource box with the linking
text included within it.
The articles are the only way I link to anyone now.
If you don't have any, consider writing a couple specifically
for this purpose. I'm sure you also know the value
of distributing well written articles for use by other
web sites and ezines.
http://tinyurl.com/pu8m
The above link leads to a contributed tutorial
article which discusses the value of contributing articles
to other sites and lists article distribution sites
and free content email lists.
The first few recipients of this email response to their
reciprocal link request have responded with polite but
obvious surprise.
A couple have said simply, "Oh, I see."
I don't usually hear back from them if article distribution
is not something they already do. But a few smart webmasters
have set about writing content to distribute with their
link requests.
I now do this routinely for search engine optimization
clients that retain me for linking campaigns. If that
client doesn't write articles of their own, I will then
ghost write articles for them and distribute them as
a part of link requests to increase client link popularity.
Success on the web is becoming increasingly complex
and that means that specialists are becoming more valuable
to web site owners seeking visibility and avoiding scams.
The latest scam is cloaked reciprocal links URL's that
redirect to affiliate program sales pages.
Reciprocal linking is dead!