It is a truth universally acknowledged that
webmasters seeking to build the prominence of their sites and their
position in search engine results must of necessity engage in a
dedicated link-building effort. All the search engines use the extent
of inbound links to a web page as a means of assessing the value of
that page, the logic being that if someone has bothered to provide a
link to the page, there must be something
worthwhile on it, and the more links there are, the more worthwhile it
must be. Quantity, of course, is not everything, and the quality of
those links is also important, measured usually by the Google PageRank
of the page on which the link is located. A number of different
programmes exist which will search for web for sites offering high
PageRank and keywords similar to yours that might make attractive link
partners. All you have to do then, so the logic goes, is contact the
webmaster and offer to exchange links.
However this process is not as straightforward as it seems. Brand new
sites that need links the most, and for which the marginal value of an
additional link is highest, are the hardest to build links for, since
the value of the links which they can offer in exchange is lowest. So
if you are seeking to play this game, you need to be aware of the
power-play politics of link exchange. You will soon find that the
majority of well-established sites have a form on one of their web
pages which you can complete and submit for
consideration. Invariably the form requires you to put your link in
place first. This involves around 2-4 minutes work, depending on the
efficiency of your own process for posting links on your own site.
However, you have no guarantee that the other website will do anything
other than say to themselves 'Yes, great, another inbound link for no
expense', and not bother to reciprocate the link, reasoning that they
will save themselves a few minutes work and the submitting party may
not bother to follow up and go through the process of deleting the link
they have put up, since this will be extra work for them. Indeed it is
probably true that the effort of establishing that a link has not been
reciprocated, and then deleting your link to that site, is more than
the cost of maintaining that link in place (after all, this cost is
little or nothing). Experience suggests that less than 10% of forms
which you complete will ever result in a reciprocal link actually being
established. This means that the 2-4 minutes work for a link submission
has just become 20-40 minutes work per link that you actually get. Your
link-building strategy has just become very expensive indeed.
How can you beat these odds and lower the cost of linking? Here are a
few guidelines that have been learnt the hard way. First, do not submit
to the most easily accessible sites on the search engines. If you
search for say 'free link exchange' and submit a form to the first 20
sites with form submission that come up, you can bet that many other
people have done the same. This means that these sites will be swamped
with link submissions and, human nature being what it is, are the most
likely not to bother reciprocating the link - after all, they don't
need to. Choose instead sites that are on page 20 or 30 of the search
results: these people will be more eager to have links and are more
likely to behave in an honorable way and reciprocate your link.
Secondly, look carefully at the language that introduces the form on
their link submission page. Look for people who guarantee to
reciprocate your link within a given (short) amount of time. Look for
language which shows awareness of the risk you are taking with your
time in completing their form. Of course, this could mean that they are
particularly cynical about this process, but our experience suggests
that this is a way to beat the odds. Thirdly, look for an email address
that looks like a real person. Shoot them an email asking how long they
will take to reciprocate your link if you complete their form. This
takes a few seconds only. Once you have heard back from a real person,
the odds of them reciprocating your link are much higher.
Good luck and good linking
