Link Exchanges

[Flober]

When linking exchanging with another website, do you bother with checking their PR?
Afterall PR isn't anything special anymore, but its still nice to have a high PR.

[Feydakin]

Never did..

[streko]

rather then check the PR i have always done a "site:www.domainname.com" on yahoo to see what kinda inlinks they are getting.

[SEMSpot]

I do not really look at the PR, it is nothing but a number. Check to see how many backlinks that site has going to it. Also look at see how many other links they are listing on there site. If they have pages and pages of links then I normally stay away from a site like that. To the engines it can be considered a link farm with all the links they post up.

[Webnauts]

If I would exchange links, I would set the following requirements:

* Pages where my links should live must be indexed by Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.

* My link exchange partner domain should be at least 3 years old or must not be expiring before 3 years.

* Content relevance of the linking website to the content of my website.

* Link should not be placed on pages with which end with links or linkslist ot linklists .html,.php,asp,jsp, or so ever.

* My links should not have the "nofollow" attribute..

* The pages the links shall live should not have a noindex or nofollow meta tags.

* The pages the links shall live should not be disallowed in the site's robots.txt

* The pages my links shall live, should have maximimum 60% OBLs of the total links of the living page (including the internal links).

* Relevant keyword/ key phrases which is used in the anchor text of the links to the content of your page that the link points me.

* I would keep checking my links on those pages once in a while to make sure they appear in there, and if they have a well position or not.

* FFA websites no chance.

* Adult website no chance. Except if my site was an adults site.

* Link farms no chance.

Once again. These are my rules.

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

* I would keep checking my links on those pages once in a while to make sure they appear in there, and if they have a well position or not.

I'd like to highlight this point in particular because I believe it very well could be the one that's most often overlooked.

Link exchanges don't automatically remain "good" forever. It's important that you set aside some time at regular intervals to check and verify that those links continue to meet your desired criteria.

Dave

[chowell]

I think using the PR as a basic gauge of how a website has been evaluated by Google is appropriate. While not 100% accurate, it's still one metric to base your evaluation. And when you're bogged down (timewise), there aren't a lot of other quick metrics to use.

Others you might evaluate:
- Yahoo backlinks
- Pages listed in Google
- Site's rankings in Google (using a rankings scraper tool)

[pchauhan]

I never bother about the PR of the sites links... but this link must be placed in the related page .. and pges should be renenty cached.. or i like to exchange links with bloggs becuase we need traffuic to our sites that can be driven through blogs

[khurramali]

No matter if it is not important, I can't resist checking the PR of the home page.

and the PR of the page he is linking to my website from.

[pchauhan]

Originally Posted by khurramali

No matter if it is not important, I can't resist checking the PR of the home page.

and the PR of the page he is linking to my website from.

Then Why people always ask for PR..

I think its beeter to ask people to exchange link with relivant and cached site ,,,,,,,,,,,

[qh4dotcom]

Yes I do check the PageRank. A website with High page rank usually receives more traffic than one with low page rank.

[pankaj.sharma]

Thanx Webnauts

You have covered all the possible points useful for link exchange

[DrTandem1]

The PR is simply a distraction. I uninstalled my Google Toolbar long ago. Webnauts points are valid, I use the same criteria on a site I administer. A site could meet all of those requirements and still have a crummy PR. The site may be new. So, I wouldn't simply blow it off because of PR. Visit the site, check out the linking configuration/organization.

Cranky Dave also makes a good point about checking link status. Some sites go under and because they have traffic, some jerk will pick up the domain and point it to his house of sleeze or link farm. That could penalize your site for an questionable OBL, not to mention upsetting some visitors. Plain old broken links are annoying, too.

PR may be a way of judging your own site because you know its history. However, it's not really useful as a linking tool, unless you are monitoring the other site for a good periood of time.

[erikko]

im more into relevancy than in PR

[coolguy27]

Minimize you reciprocal link exchanging but boosts your one way links (IBLs)...More IBLs....Especially quality ones...

[mjtaylor]

Your rules rule, webnauts. These are excellent guidelines. I didn't quite get one of them though. Please clarify:

Originally Posted by Webnauts

* The pages my links shall live, should have maximimum 60% OBLs of the total links of the living page (including the internal links).

Thanks, MJ

[Webnauts]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Your rules rule, webnauts. These are excellent guidelines. I didn't quite get one of them though. Please clarify: Thanks, MJ

Link Juice?

[mjtaylor]

That didn't do it for me ...

I want to understand what you mean by:

The pages my links shall live, should have maximimum 60% OBLs of the total links of the living page (including the internal links).

Thanks, MJ

[crankydave]

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

That didn't do it for me ...

I want to understand what you mean by:



Thanks, MJ

I think what he is trying to say is that the page where his link will be placed should have no more than 60% of the total number of links on the page pointing to external pages. I can see where this could be a consideration when it comes to a page appearing "link farmy" etc. because it lacks internal navigation.

As for me, the percentage of links pointing to external resources is not as important as the total number of links on the page regardless of where they they point.

Dave

[mjtaylor]

Got it! Thank you ... makes sense to me ...

[TheStig]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

If I would exchange links, I would set the following requirements:

* FFA websites no chance.

The rest makes sense but FFA?

[DrTandem1]

FFA - Free for all

[Janna122003]

Originally Posted by Flober

When linking exchanging with another website, do you bother with checking their PR?
Afterall PR isn't anything special anymore, but its still nice to have a high PR.

For me it doesn't matter whether the PR is low or high as long as the site is related and does not considered as bad neighborhood.

[TheStig]

Not sure about you guys but 99% of email link requests get hit by the spam button before i read the second line.

If i think the site is worth linking to it, i will link to it, unfortunately most of these damn link requests come from cheap outsourced agencies that think seo like its 1999!

[bobitza]

Originally Posted by Webnauts

* I would keep checking my links on those pages once in a while to make sure they appear in there, and if they have a well position or not.

Isn't there a (free) program that can automatically check the existence of a link on a page? Periodically ...

[ushuiah]

Sometimes I check the PR before I exchange link but the most important to me is the relevancy of the site. I prefer to gain more one-way links than to reciprocal links.

[bobitza]

Originally Posted by bobitza

Isn't there a (free) program that can automatically check the existence of a link on a page? Periodically ...

I was looking around and found something worth sharing: Link manager - Reciprocal link software for free!

[amjad_you]

Originally Posted by pchauhan

Then Why people always ask for PR..

I think its beeter to ask people to exchange link with relivant and cached site ,,,,,,,,,,,

Actually they think like having a Link back from a Good PR Site is everything irrespective of thinking about the relevancy of the theme and content of the site. The thing that matters is actually the website relevancy.
Am I right?

[bmnobbs]

I personally would add 2 more linking criteria to Webnauts requirements.

1] Our links no more than 3 pages deep from your site's home page, ( ideally no more than 2 - i.e. max.2 clicks to reach ) or no more than one page deep if your a newbie or your site's home page's PR is 2 or less.
2] If our link is on a 'resources' type page, that a link to your site's resources section is on your home page.

[ericajoieake]

Originally Posted by Flober

When linking exchanging with another website, do you bother with checking their PR?
Afterall PR isn't anything special anymore, but its still nice to have a high PR.

For me I have to check the pr, alexa rank and the site relevancy of that site to your site.

[josh08]

Originally Posted by ericajoieake

For me I have to check the pr, alexa rank and the site relevancy of that site to your site.

i agree with you....

[mjtaylor]

Originally Posted by ericajoieake

For me I have to check the pr, alexa rank and the site relevancy of that site to your site.

Originally Posted by josh08

i agree with you....

Why would you check Alexa rank? It is widely known that that is not a valuable metric. And how do you check PR? If you mean TBPR, you are pretty much wasting your time.

Now, checking relevance. That *is* useful.

[digitalseo]

Originally Posted by ericajoieake

For me I have to check the pr, alexa rank and the site relevancy of that site to your site.

Originally Posted by mjtaylor

Why would you check Alexa rank? It is widely known that that is not a valuable metric. And how do you check PR? If you mean TBPR, you are pretty much wasting your time.

Now, checking relevance. That *is* useful.

agree with you mjtaylor..@ericajoieake why care about alexa rank? for me i dont care about alexa rank due to inaccurate result..

@Question: i also take consideration of PR but not as much sometimes having a high PR doesn't mean that a certain site is a "quality site"..relevancy and quality content are the most important...