Reciprocal Link Exchange Services: The Unvarnished Truth

It can be really hard to get a straight answer today about what works and what doesn't work in search engine marketing. So many different companies have a piece of software to sell that reliable information about link exchange, inbound linking, and reciprocal linking is incredibly difficult to come by. Let's say you're considering using reciprocal link exchange services. You can't ask a reciprocal link exchange service whether reciprocal links are still a good strategy—their business model depends on telling you “yes.” This guide will give you unbiased, up to date information about whether it's a good idea to use reciprocal link exchange services in 2012 and 2013.

What is a Reciprocal Link Exchange Service?

Reciprocal linking refers to the “you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours” notion of trading links for mutual search engine optimization benefit. Reciprocal link exchange services were some of the hottest properties for people wanting to do search engine marketing in 2005 to 2007. However, they have recently declined in popularity, for reasons we'll get to in just a few minutes.

A reciprocal link exchange service works by automating some of the process to automate links. Generally, the way that reciprocal link exchange services work is by having you put a small piece of code into the HTML of your website. When that piece of code is used, it gives other people a way to automatically generate a reciprocal link to you. A reciprocal link exchange service can sometimes be a way to generate dozens or hundreds of inbound links in a very short amount of time, which is why these services became so well loved by search engine marketing professionals.

How Do Lawyers Use a Reciprocal Link Exchange Service?

Some attorneys used reciprocal link exchange services a bit differently. Instead of just using a reciprocal link exchange service that allowed for any links to be exchanged, some lawyers chose to do link exchanges only with other lawyers. However, this still allowed links to be made that were automated and with low quality control.

The reason that attorneys used this strategy was to make their rankings rise higher. With a higher number of inbound links, especially from contextually related websites, Google tends to assume that a site is trustworthy and should be included among the top results for a search string.

When lawyers were using reciprocal link exchange services, they were trading quality SEO for quantities of inbound links. A reciprocal link exchange service could never generate the same level of link quality that you would get from carefully building links organically, but until a few years ago, there was just no reason to care.

Why Reciprocal Link Exchange Changed

In recent years, Google has gotten better at determining the quality level of an inbound link. Now, the number of links you have from reciprocal link exchange services can actually sometimes harm your site. That's because Google recognizes an excessive use of a reciprocal link exchange service is usually an indication of a low quality, high quantity link building strategy of a type that it likes to discourage.

Today, the amount of link juice that you'll get from additional reciprocal links dwindles to zero if you receive a high percentage of links from reciprocal link exchange services. This means that using a reciprocal link exchange service went from being useful to being very nearly useless overnight.

What Do We Do Now?

If you were using reciprocal link exchange services before, you need to have a new strategy now. Instead of a reciprocal link exchange service, you should be working to build effective, engaging one way links that will be of interest to real people.

Avoid any excessive automation in creating your one way links. Placing identical links in a large number of websites will trip Google's over optimization detectors just as fast or faster than using reciprocal link exchange services. You should strive for link diversity, which will serve you much better through any future search updates and changes.

Avoiding Penalties For Using Reciprocal Link Exchange Services

If you've already been using a reciprocal link exchange service, this article may be making you very nervous. If you've been penalized or are worried about penalties to your search rankings from using reciprocal link exchange services, you need to take action now. Run a backlinks checker online that can detect where your inbound links are coming from. Then, when you find the backlinks that were generated by a reciprocal link exchange service, make a note of the URL and start emailing webmasters to have your links taken down.

Most webmasters today will be very understanding—after all, they were clearly using reciprocal link exchange services too, and may like you be learning just now about their disadvantages. However, if a webmaster is reluctant to take down the link put up by a reciprocal link building service, the solution is easy: just take the link down from your website, and you now have a perfectly serviceable one way link.

The Future of Reciprocal Link Exchange Services

Of course, no reciprocal link exchange service wants to go down without a fight. When reciprocal link exchange services were first made irrelevant to search engine optimization, many of them tried various tactics to stay in business. A few are still functional today, but the truth is that the reciprocal link exchange service appears to be, for the most part, a dying breed.

What's more, it seems very unlikely that reciprocal link exchange services will make a comeback. Reciprocal linking is just too easy to abuse for Google to ever encourage it again. Changing your law firm's search engine marketing focus is absolutely necessary if you've been using a reciprocal link exchange service. You can't hope that the new fads will go away and that reciprocal linking will come back—it's so unlikely to happen that it's not even worth planning for.