Is Reciprocal Linking Dead?
There was a time when reciprocal linking was a number one priority among webmasters and SEO's for obtaining a good search engine position, that time alas is no longer with us. This is in no small part because webmasters are no longer dedicating as much time to link pages. Why should they spend hours and hours getting link partners and then making sure that their are linking back to them when all they have to do is spend 5 minutes joining a web ring or 20 minutes a day updating their blog or rss feed.
More and more we are using other methods to get sites linking to us, such as joining web rings, or on placing keyword rich text ads placed on carefully selected forums or interest sites. These bring us the keyword relevancy weight we crave so much as well as targeting the people who actually have an interest in the product or idea we are marketing. With the introduction of such tools as rss and blogs there has come a change in the way we develop our sites to obtain a good page rank and a hopefully a higher rank with the engines. Gone are the pages and pages of links to other people's websites and instead we use the single page blog/feed. We are reaching out to a different audience, an audience that wants to come back to us day after day after day because they have a similar interest to ours.
With our blogs potentially being fed to anyone who wants to read it we can give our new customers / readers some useful information as well as ensure a return visit which could result in that elusive sale. Updating our blogs is more enjoyable than chasing backlinks; we are indulging in a pastime we have an interest in and obtaining a good result for our site.
I still get hits for my older sites from link partners but obtaining link partners for my new site is increasingly difficult and to be honest I probably won't chase this time consuming preoccupation with getting return links ever again. If I can obtain more visitors and ensure a regular visit from a search bot as well as use my time reading and writing about a subject that interests me then I will, won't you?
My view is that reciprocal linking is dead. Long live the blog.
For more information on rss you can go here.
For more information on blogging go here.
Mark White has worked in I.T. for the last 15 years and currently runs 3 websites. http://buy-dvds-online.com http://sunspeks.com http://tendollardownloads.com/ And administrates for http://freetraffictip.com/members
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