So, useless link exchange pages still work?!

[Cornwall]

After 3 years out of SEO I thought things might have moved on, but apparently not. Bit of back link research and all the top sites in my niche have tons of reciprocal links to barely relevant sites.

Do I really have to do this? I mean I thought this was so out of date, it's not much better than keyword stuffing.

So, should I just forget my lofty principles asking myself 'is this of any value to my users?' and just take the medicine?

[Cornwall]

Thanks for the replies. It's kind of what I feel - I can't really bring myself to start swapping links with 'Bulgarian dog widget' sites!

I had just been assuming that the value of a reciprocal link was pretty much null if the two sites were of similar standing - IMHO that's how it should be. I link to sites that I like, that's the way it should work.

Having said all that, I do have some more targeted, less precious sites that I might set up a 'useful links, / resources / our friends or whatever euphemism is favoured these days. But, I draw the line at some of the off-topic junk I see on my competitors.

[jjgonza]

Thanks for the great answer. Our site has minimal links compared to our competition but our links are quality relevant links. I was always frustrated trying to get good ranking for our site but as you said _your content, and your seo basics, and keep up your principles! _ Well after a year of sticking to our principals we have seen a dramatic increase in traffic and ranking. It's paying off. Thank you moz community.

[donford]

Hi Chris,

Things like that sure can be frustrating. Since penguin / panda I have seen many users here question the actual benefit to them as their industries are still riddled with black hat seo tricks.

But in some cases Google can't really penalize a site simply for having 30 or 40 of these crappy links when they have 300-400 quality links. The big issue for Google is that many of these website owners did only what the seo industry told them to do, which was get as many links as possible. I think they did a pretty fair job at penalizing the biggest link rings and farms, but there are still many little guys out there that are operating. I would bet in time many more sites are going to get penalized.,

Remember your users, your content, and your seo basics, and keep up your principles!

[Keszi]

In my belief, working on quality, expecting to have link on sites that are really big fish in the industry, eventually will pay out.

Yes, there are still a high number of websites which rank well with those links, but time will come when they will regret that.

So don't worry about your principles just keep up the good work.

Greetings,

Istvan