Link Exchange Debate

Some may not think twice about exchanging a link. Myself on the other hand, I'm extremely picky about where my link goes. While I don't claim to be a SEO expert (well, at least not anymore because of how much has changed), I do know what I've experienced in the past 3 years.

From my own experience and what I've read from REAL experts, I'm come to the conclusion that a page full of links is completely USELESS. I will not waste my time emailing hundreds of webmasters and sticking their link on an endless page of links. It give my visitors no real value (have YOU ever sifted through a page full of links? I'd rather take my chances searching on Yahoo....), and Google find much value in it either.

I'm not saying link exchanges are a bad thing. I'm just saying unorganized link PAGES aren't good. Let me put it this way...

Remember in school when you had to write reports with foot notes and quotes? The references were listed either right on the page or in the back of the report, numbered. Now imagin if instead of using numbers next to the quotes or noting references right on the page, you had one page in the back of the report that said "here some stuff I used and is kinda relevant". Think you would have gotten an "A" on that paper? I don't think so.

I know there are so many absolutely programed to do link exchanges. I was too, but I'm changing my habits. I no longer accept general link exchanges, but rather REAL PAGE link exchages. At the bottom of pages and main sections, I list resources that go directly to what my page is about.

For example, a few weeks ago I finished up the recipe section on Idea Queen. Instead of stuffing a link page with recipe sites and having them stuff the home page of Idea Queen on their link page, I did a MAIN PAGE exchange. On the main recipe idea page, I listed pages which were relevant under "additional resources". Now doesn't that look better and give more quality? Visitors are given another place to go after they leave my site, and vise versa. Google sees the links as higher quality because they are highly relevent to the page they sit on. EVERYONE wins here.

Now I know sometimes there will be a need for a link page (or as I like to call them, RESOURCE pages). That's fine! However, I prefer to spend my time exchanging links that REALLY count! ;)