Is link exchange still work?

[kunalkumar]

it still work
Today I look at whether exchanging links is still an effective SEO tactic, or whether you should avoid link exchanges altogether.

linkbuilding

Back in the glory days of the late 90s/early 2000s, exchanging links was the done thing in SEO.

Every site under the sun had a ‘links’ page or, taking things a stage further, a categorised directory containing thousands of unrelated links to everything from table tennis bat suppliers to dog walkers.

And then around 2005/2006 things started to change. Google, which was by now under pressure to improve the quality of it’s results had to do something to stop this easy to game method of ranking your website.

So, sites that had been aggressively trading links with unrelated sites took a tumble down the rankings and exchanging links was declared taboo.

One way links became the sought after SEO holy grail and complex link wheels, 3 way link schemes and other dubious tactics started to become the staple of the unscrupulous SEO.

But that’s enough of the history lesson! The purpose of this article is to convince you that these days, exchanging links is a good thing for your site and that you should stop worrying about building one way backlinks.