SEOenthusiast

No reciprocals please
Reciprocal linking is dead. Not quite true - but good as a general rule. In link building, after requesting links, if they ask you for a return link - pass on, move to the next link request. Google (particularly, but the others too) are looking for votes from established sites. Reciprocals are synthetic, they don't tell the right story - they aren't a vote, they represent an agreed exchange because people have heard that links are seen well in search engines. Well, yes, 2 years ago perhaps. Not now. The search engines rule the internet world and they've hired the smartest people on the planet, people who fix the algorithms, people who aren't daft enough to think that reciprocal links just happen organically. That's what they're looking for - organic linking, not artificial linking. Site A must think that Site B is good enough to link to for no reason other than it enhances their own visitor experience which helps their own SEO and SEM.
Now - despite appearances, reciprocal linking is not quite dead - that would be unfair and sub-optimal. Some sites will naturally link to each other. As webmasters (through their clients) govern the content of their sites, they may well link to site B for the right reason. Site B may well do the same - site A is a good 'further reading' site. But the fact is that the SE's can sort all that out - they know what is genuine and what is simulated organic linking. Where the links in site A appear in a paragraph of text which itself is in sympathy with the theme of site A and site B - good link. If the same is true of site B - no problem with the reciprocals. The SE's reason that if the webmaster from site A has gone to the trouble of linking with significant context - that the link is organic, whether reciprocal or otherwise.
This has huge implications for your link building campaigns. You simply shouldn't bother so much with reciprocal links. If someone asks you for a link - be generous - link if it's appropriate and don't ask for a return link. Same in reverse - if someone asks you for a return link for your originating request - perhaps persist for a short time in the request without recipricating - then move on - there are 50,000 other sites to write to.
Reciprocal linking isn't quite dead - but the pulse is so weak from the point of view of SEO that you may as well have attended the funeral.
Further Reading: Forum - Is Reciprocal Linking Dead? | Reciprocal Linking is Dead


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