Understanding Link Exchanges: Banish the Half-Truths

Whenever a new technology, concept, invention, or discovery becomes popular, many myths and half-truths get associated with it automatically.The existence of these half-turths is prolonged by the so called "advocates" of that particular concept. Take the case of link exchanges. Every webmaster feels strongly that the more the number of links pointing to a web site, better is going to be the pagerank and positioning of that web site. Agreed that link exchanges play an important role in improving a site's reach and popularity on search engines, but overindulgence or depending solely on one strategy can be sometimes fatal also. It is important to use the link exchange program in moderation and the following half-truths need to be dispelled for more effective SEO:

Half-Truth - "I need to link to every site possible"

This thinking is virtual suicide for your site. Though linking with sites is important, but not with every site under the sun. you need to study and analyse the relevance and relation of that site with your site. The sites you link to must be very much complementary to the services and products offered by your site, at the same time, they should not be a threat to your popularity.

Half-Truth - "Adding sites is like give and take"

It is not necessary that adding others' sites to your site would automatically make others add your site to theirs too. So, don't be under any misconceptions that your favor will always be returned. Be sure that you link to the reciprocal sites by waiting for a green signal from the other sites agreeing to list your site.

Half- Truth - "The title of the link should carry my site's name"

Search engines like Google consider those titles of the links that have specific keywords inserted in the title of the link instead of putting the website name in the title of the link.What matters here is not the name of your web site in the title of the link, but the keywords or keyphrases for which you are optimizing your pages.

Half- Truth - "Placing all links on one page in no order is okay"

Well, this is far from the truth. Make it easy and comfortable for the visitors and search engines to find and explore the differentpages of your site by placing all the links in a directory with each link partner given a specific category.

Half-Truth - "Linking to high Google Page Ranking sites is the right thing"

Not necessarily. Instead of wasting your time on looking for high page rank sites to link with, concentrate your energies and efforts at the quality of the internet business. A well designed site will automatically have higher pagerank, and so will the value of your link increase manifold by linking to a quality site.

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