Ok, so I just talked about how reciprocal link popularity is almost dead. There is one way to still harness the power of reciprocal links, its call 3 way linking. This is considered a spam technique and I am writing about it to guide you against it. Eventually the Google algorithm will be able to determine these types of links.

The only way this seems to work is if the sites are compatible. The basic logic behind this technique is as follows.

Site 1 links to primary compatible site, site 3 who is not a part of the primary compatible site links back to site 1.

The only ways to be sure that the sites are counted separately:

1). Look at the class C IP range, are they in the same scope?
2). Are the domains owned by the same NIC Handle?
3). Do the sites cross link?

Answer yes to any of these and it will not work.

This is the basic explanation of this popular phenomenon.

My recommendation, always do things the right way! Head my warning, this is SPAM, be safe and just say no!

I am sure you have heard by now about an approach to SEO called reciprocal link popularity. Where 2 webmaster will cross link their sites together to gain a boost in their rankings. I want to explain why this concept does not work and for most websites it’s really a huge waste of time.

In the most basic terms trust rank detects sites that cross link to each other and basically cancels them out, in some cases very powerful sites will still pass some power.

Of course there is a lot more to this, are the sites compatible? Can you correlate a connection between site 1 and site 2? Thus a site for a local plumber probably should not cross link with a porn site.

Or if you look at the Stanford paper it specifically talks about linking with a bad seed, a site with a spam status. By their paper, if you link with a spammy site you may feel the pinch of the link.

You are much better off sponsoring a site within your industry that is not a competitor and would be happy to talk about your products or services. If you have a few hours to blow, you may want to look at this paper. I found it very insightful.

I am constantly looking at sources to build link popularity and it has become clear. Buying links on large sites can be almost useless, especially if they are not relevant. As most of us know it is imperative to have a quality SEO linking strategy. I hear of ideas all the time and the first time this idea was presented to me was after the SES London conference this year.

Instead of just buying links randomly in footers and side navigation, no-one seas. Try another route; maybe sponsor a Blog about your product and or service. Not just for a link, but when they mention something relevant about your products have them link directly to it. There is nothing more relevant that getting links from strong content within a document. You cannot get more relevant than that.

This same concept can open other doors in some cases; you may have sites that just like to talk about your products and may not be a Blog. There are endless opportunities to harness this environment, however it takes hard work. You can’t simply write a piece of software to spam webmasters about this program, it’s not that easy.

Try it and let me know how it works for you, I have seen success with it. Not only from the SEO side of things, but from the organic traffic that I get from these Blog sites. Which alone will make it worth while, you can even use an affiliate model to pay for the traffic with a SEO friendly affiliate program.

Other sources for Link Popularity may be right in front of you. Are there blogs or forums that talk about your products and services? Why not sponsor them?

It is way too easy for current tier 1 search engines to detect navigational links; obviously they are the same on every page. Thus the intended value can be altered on the fly. If a link is place in the corpus of the document and is highly relevant it will pass value. The greater the site value is the better the performance.

For example if you have an auto parts site that carries products for all makes and models. Find enthusiasts sites that talk about their cars, you will get a tremendous amount of click through traffic from the article itself. The additional value of the link will greatly help your search engine rankings.

You may want to approach them with a rev share deal, you can use a search engine friendly affiliate program to make it work. You must be specific on how they link to you, a simple link to the home page will not drive any significant SEO value to the destination page.

Alternative methods for gaining inbound links.

Over the years I have researched many ways to create a draw for quality inbound links. Usually without a massive viral marketing plan this is almost impossible, and or very expensive to accomplish. If you are currently using an affiliate program on your site, you now have a way to get quality inbound links from your affiliates. Comission Junction uses link tracking and makes it impossible to gain any real traction. As you may or may not know, redirected links will provide you little to no help with your natural search rankings.

The program that I believe has the greatest success rate is offered by a company called link connector, where they offer a simple way to get your affiliates to link to you directly. This technology uses a cookie to track the sale, instead of a redirected link.
Link about Merchant Program