Link exchanges are a great way to get links to your web site. However, it is a time consuming and tedious process and there are more than a few webmasters that are involved in shady practices when it comes to link exchanges.

The time consuming and tedious aspect of link exchanges are:

1. Link hunting - finding suitable web sites to engage in link exchanges.
2. Contacting the webmaster for a link exchange - through an email or link submission form.
3. Putting up links to the web site you are requesting a link exchange.
4. Waiting for the webmaster to respond.
5. Checking periodically for your link on your partner’s site.

Out of the above list of time consuming and tedious aspects of link exchanges, the last point, “Checking periodically for your link on your partner’s site” would take the most amount of time. Checking for your link on your partner’s site involves more than just looking for the presence of your link on their site (which also takes a great deal of time since they may move or remove your link and not tell you). You need to check that the link they use for your web site is a valid static HTML link and that the webmaster is not using any shady link exchange practices.

Shady link exchange practices includes:

1. The use of meta tag “NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW”
2. The use of javascript
3. The use of redirects
4. Using robots.txt to block link pages or directories from search engine robots
5. Orphaned link pages or directories
6. Using new attribute “rel=nofollow”
7. Using frames or iframes

The time consuming and tedious aspect of link exchanges is one of the reasons why many internet businesses choose to buy text links. Buying text links is the quickest and most efficient method to obtaining thousands of links to your web site in a short amount of time. This can greatly and quickly boost your link popularity and search engine rankings.

Directory links are links from web directories, these are web sites that collect and organize web sites into categories for easier browsing. Directories were most popular during the period prior to search engines becoming the main method of finding information. Although they are used less today, they are still a valuable source links and traffic to your web site.

Types of directories

There are two main types of directories, general directories and niche directories. General directories will include any web site within their large list of categories, which may range from arts and literature to shopping sites. Niche directories only accept sites that are within it’s niche or theme. For example, a jewelry directory will list only web sites with jewelry related content and therefore, will not list a lingerie site.

Types of directory submissions

There are two types of submissions to directories, paid submissions and free submissions.

A paid submission is when there is an exchange of money for the review of a web site submission. Paying for a submission doesn’t necessarily mean that a site will be accepted into the directory. Some directories will refund the submission fee if the site is not listed in the directory. Other directories will keep the submission fee even though the site does not pass their review to be included in their directory. Submission fees can also be a recurring fee or a one time fee. Most paid submission directories will usually guarantee the review of the web site within, typically, 48-72 hours.

A free directory submission, as the name suggests, costs no money to submit your site. Some directories with free submission will require a link back to the directory. Most directories with free submissions will not have a guarantee that the submission will be reviewed within a given time period. For this reason, many free directory submissions may take months, even years before the submission gets reviewed.

Not all directories are created equal!

There are many directories that are spammy, created for the purpose of illiciting one way links for link exchanges. Such directories will often accept any directory submission as long as a reciprocal link can be provided and they typically don’t check the quality of the site being submitted. Such directories are often not worth submitting to.

However, there are also many reputable directories. A reputable directory will review the submission and the web site proposed for inclusion into their directory. They won’t include just any site into their directory, but sites that have unique content. There are many reputable directories, the top two being:

1. Dmoz.org - Also known as the Open Directory Project or ODP. Dmoz only accepts free submissions. Links from Dmoz.org are static html links. Submissions are reviewed by volunteers so it may take anywhere between 1 week and 2 years to get listed, if you get listed. There is no notification of whether the site submitted will be listed, or when it will be listed.
2. Yahoo! Directory - Yahoo’s directory will accept both free submissions and paid submissions. The fee for paid submissions are annually recurring. Links from Yahoo’s directory uses redirected links, but it’s thought that search engines such as Google can still determine that your site is listed in Yahoo! Directory and this may work in your favor in terms of ranking in search engines.

Buying text links is a common practice in internet businesses to get links to a web sites. Buying text links involves the exchange of money for a text link on a web site. It’s can be viewed as an advertisement for your web site in text form, making it a text link advertisement, or text link ad.

Buying text links is the quickest way to get relevant links to your web site. It’s possible to boost your web site’s business, link popularity and search engine rankings in 3 months or less when buying text links.

There are several ways to purchase text links. Each method of text links purchasing has its advantages and disadvantages. You can buy text links:

1. from brokerages
2. from text link auction sites
3. directly from the web site hosting the text link ads

Text link exchanges are a great, cost effective way to get links to your web site. Links, in particular text links, to your web site will increase your web site’s link popularity, and consequently search engine rankings. Link exchanges are when you request from another webmaster a link to your web site, and in return, you link to their web site.

Link exchanges usually result in bilateral or reciprocal links, however, it is possible to get a one way link to your web site by a link exchange. This is often very difficult and you would need at least 2 web sites to participate in non-reciprocal or one way link exchange.

You can get free text links by having great content on your web site, and because of your great content, other webmasters would link to your web site for free as it is seen to be a great resource.

One way links means that a web site links to your web site, but you don’t link back to that web site. One way links are also known as non-reciprocal links.

One way links are thought to be more valuable than reciprocal links in terms of boosting your web site’s link popularity, therefore the more one way links your web site has, the higher your web site’s link popularity.

One way links are thought to be more valuable as they appear to be a more “natural” way of linking between web sites. If you imagine that you find a great resource for you web site, you link to that resource, however, that resource web site doesn’t link back to you, most likely because they don’t know you’re linking to them.

Acquiring one way links are much more difficult than reciprocal links. It is possible to get one way links using “triangular” link exchanges, however this is often difficult and you would require at least 2 web sites to do so. “Triangular” link exchanges are when your web site A links to your partner’s web site, and your partner’s web site links to your web site B.

Reciprocal links are links where you link to your partner’s web site and your partner links to your web site. Reciprocal links are also known as bilateral links. Reciprocal links are a very cost effective way to get links and visitors to your web site. Many webmasters engage in link exchanges for reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links are thought to be de-valued by search engines. It is much better to have non-reciprocal, or one way links, which can be achieved quickly with text link ads. Having said that, link exchanges for reciprocal links are still an important aspect in building your web site’s link popularity.

Reciprocal links between thematically similar sites can bring more targeted traffic to your sites. In addition, both websites’ weight with regards to search engine results can be increased as search engine algorithms are believed to give greater value to links from the topic-related sites rather than irrelevant backlinks.

Static HTML links are links that do not use redirection or javascript, just plain HTML. An example of a static HTML link is:

It’s important to be linked to by a static HTML links. This is because static HTML links are easily spidered by search engine robots.

The accessibility of your web site by search engine robots is important as it provides two main benefits;

1. It allows your web site to be indexed and updated frequently by search engines.
2. Your web site ranks better for your top keywords (or keyphrase) when you use them as the anchor text in a static HTML link.

Text links can increase link popularity more than image or banner links. This is because the text of the link, typically called the “anchor text”, influences the ranking and popularity of a web site.

For example, if the anchor text of a text link to your web site is “fun web site”, then your web site will be known as a “fun web site” and your ranking and link popularity for the search term “fun web site” would be increased.

Text links also have a higher click through rate (CTR). Click through rate is the average number of clicks per one hundred impressions, and is usually expressed as a percentage (%). For example, when a text link or banner is displayed 100 times to visitors of a web site, and 1 visitor clicks the text link or banner, the click through rate (CTR) would be 1% for that text link or banner.

Text links are said to have a higher click through rate because of the “banner blindness” of visitors. “Banner blindness” is a term used when a visitor skimming a web page does not see or notice banners. “Banner blindness” most likely occurred due to the overuse of banner ads.

Themed links, that is a link from the same theme or category as your own web site, is much more worthwhile than a link from an unrelated web site. For example, if you have a web site about shoes, a link from a web site about weight loss would not be as effective in increasing your link popularity as a link from another web site about shoes.

If you think of links as votes, it’s better to have a vote from within the same industry than a vote from another industry. Although it’s thought to be not completely worthless to have a link from an unrelated web site, it does less for your web site’s link popularity.

Themed links are important when you engage in link exchanges or when you buy text link ads. To get the maximum benefit from a link exchange or text link ad, it’s definitely better to look for web sites that are in the same themed as yours than unrelated sites.