Are Dealer Reciprocal Links Hurting My SEO?

[JBell]

We are a manufacturer of fireplaces that sells our product through a series of nationwide distributors. We have a link to each of our distributors, who also have links to us, on our website under a "Where to Buy" tab. If we were to remove these links and instead provide contact information, would this significantly help our SEO?

[MattJanaway]

It can depend on your link profile. If your inbound links have only a small percentage of reciprocal links then this will look natural. Just ensure you have a varied link building strategy and you should be fine.

One other thing to check is the quality of your distributors websites. If they involve themselves in spammy tactics when linkbuilding or writing content and you link to them it could look bad on your site. Please make sure that you don't make all your outbound links no follow though, this WILL look un-natural and will not help at all. However, if you have good website trust then you should be fine provided that your site looks very natural.

[Andropenis_Australia]

It comes down to the quality and seo practises of thier sites.

If they have been spammy with thier link building and you are linking to them, it will not be in your favor to keep a link to them, you could add the nofollow tag though, may help a bit.