are reciprocal links dead?

When Google last updated their algorithms some months ago, the savvy webmasters who lost rankings went away and tested why they thought their sites had vanished from the search results.

Those who came back first decided that most of the links they had into their sites were reciprocal links so that must be the reason. Many agreed with this observation so generally, within the search engine community, it was decided that recriprocal linking was dead.

Before we go forward, let me explain what reciprocal linking is. In a nutshell it is an exchange of links between 2 webmasters. For the majority this means another site will link to your site in return for the same favour. Most webmasters have links pointing to their home page only and that link will be placed on a page burried from the 3rd party site on a page with hundreds of others.

That 3rd party page will generally only have links out and not much text. Sometimes the page is just full of links whether they belong to that category or not. Some webmasters have a directory on their site so you can add your website to a relevant category.

The trouble is that these directories have nothing to do with the theme of the site. So if you run a pets site and have links out to casinos or diet sites, what use is that for your visitors. Additionally you’ll get the same in return so you have casinos linking to pet sites - it makes no sense really.

Additionally some webmasters will set up the link exchange, then after a week or so delete your link. So you have (say) 150 links out of your site to others who you think are linking back, but in reality only 50 or so sites are still linking to you.

The value of these links in PR terms is minimal also so will not help your site rank.

So should you still undertake reciprocal linking.

My answer is yes, with the following caveats.

1: Only allow linking from closely themed sites (so if you run a pets website only allow reciprocal linking with other sites within your industry - ie: other pets sites, pet food, vets etc)

2: Employ a reciprocal linking system that checks the other webmaster still has your link on their site - and delete those who have not kept their side of the bargain.

However, reciprocal linking should only be part of your linking strategy - maybe 5 or 10% - it may still work in Yahoo or MSN but only for a while. If your website rankings are solely based on reciprocal links then get other links into your website fast.