Link exchanges may negatively impact your site
Don’t link to just anybody that asks! Here’s what one reader does…
If you’ve read the recent Google papers and studies that I’ve linked to, you already know that linking to poor quality sites can have a negative impact on your own ranking.
Here’s how Patricia Petrat, a long time Tribuner deals with the issue:
“Due to my site’s placement with search engines, I am bombarded daily with link exchange requests. At first this seemed like a good thing. Then I remembered something I read in one of your newsletters; keep your reciprocal links relevant and related to what your site is about.
This bit of advice has caused me to turn away link requests for sites that are NOT similar in nature or related to my products.
The automated link software that’s now available makes it very easy for dozens of sites to contact you automatically and request a link exchange. I guess what I’m stating may be obvious, but: this doesn’t mean you HAVE to reciprocate!
Quite often when I visit the site that’s requested the link exchange (as one always should), I discover that their links page is endless. The links usually aren’t categorized or organized in any way, except alphabetically. I question the effectiveness and relevance of these types of links and wonder how much traffic they would generate.
I always respond to link requests, whether I reciprocate or not… Here’s the letter I use:
Dear ____________
Thank you for the offer to exchange links. Due to the ever-increasing number of link exchange requests I receive, I have decided to link to sites that are most closely related to mine, i.e., _______.
If I have missed something, and yours IS a site of this nature, please let me know.
I appreciate the offer to exchange links and wish you success with your business.
Kind Regards,
NAME”
I would even advise you not to even bother replying to automated, unrelated link requests… if the requestor couldn’t be bothered with writing a personalized email and instead used some automated program, why should you bother with a response?