As a person who actually does do reciprocal link management work all day, every day, as a professional, and has done it for a long time, I am fascinated by some of what I have read in this thread.

Everyone must realize that linking existed before any search engine. Linking is at the very foundation of the HTML/Browser technology. Even the term Hyper-Text markup Language refers DIRECTLY to linking.

So, here is the bottom line...

If you are linking in order to beat Google, then your efforts are likely misguided. You are either wasting time and money on largely irrelvant links, or you trying to "beat" Google with some contrived strategy of PageRank, Alexa rank, home page vs. links page placement, demands for reciprocity, etc, etc. The games are endless.

If you are linking as if Google did not exist, and are looking for the benefits from the links themselves, then you are probably on track, as you will not waste time and money chasing irrelevant links, nor will you turn away appropriate links for the lack of meeting your "gaming" criteria.

That's it. That's all there is to this.

The search engine benefit for pursuing links is actually a secondary consideration, and is nothing but very thick icing on the cake that may or may not not be stable over the long haul.

Right now, Google has most definitely rewarded sites that build responsible, legitimate link directories that function as useful directories for real visitors. That might change. It might not.

Some people will choose not to pursue directory-to-directory links. This is their choice, and they have their own reasons for or against it. If they can get where they need to be without it, in terms of Google, more power to them. There are a lot of ways to earn links. Writing articles, submitting to open directories, running an in-house affiliate program, posting in guestbooks and forums, etc. Directory-to-directory reciprocal linking is just one of them.

But I can say that, in a competitve keyword environment, the fastest, most cost effective way to establish relevant link popularity is with a well structured and determined directory-to-directory reciprocal link campaign. That's where the most accessible raw numbers lie.

Some people don't like that fact, and they are screaming loudly that directory-to-directory reciprocal linking is "spam" or not relevant, or a waste of time, or "low rent SEO" (the term that one very major SEO guru used to describe what I do in a private email to me)..

None of the hand-wringing and name calling on the part of the disgruntled really matters. Experienced web marketers will continue to do it, with or without Google rewarding it, because the traffic from directory-to-directory reciprocal linking has merit and value on it's own.

Unfortunately, linking has become intertwined with SEO work, which means that people now try to "reverse engineer" it for SEO purposes.

It's not that complicated, really. What is hard about it, and what I think bothers most people, is that doing it with some real dogged determination takes an very good data management process, and a lot of attention to detail.

Dabbling produces only limited results. And it's not at all "free". Every site that I know of that has a significant link program has assigned considerable resources of time and/or money to it.

Linking is really just another form of web marketing, with roots that extend to the very formation of the World Wide Web. As with all forms of marketing, those who do it properly will benefit, and those who don't, won't.