Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Are Link Exchange A Bad Idea

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Are Link Exchange A Bad Idea

    Link Building
    7
    11
    5063
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • ClaireH-184886
      ClaireH-184886 last edited by

      Hi, i am wondering if link exchanges are a bad idea. I have seen a company called link market where you join and exchange links with other companies and i am just wondering if this is now a bad idea.

      The last thing i do not want to happen is for google to get angry if i done link exchanges

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • roquelagellera
        roquelagellera @SanketPatel last edited by

        Take into account what Keri says!!!!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • KeriMorgret
          KeriMorgret @SanketPatel last edited by

          Do keep in mind that it is against Google's guidelines to buy links for the purposes of passing page rank.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • SanketPatel
            SanketPatel last edited by

            Hi,

            Link exchange sounds great but according to me Google LOVES the inbound links not reciprocated links. Link Exchange is a good if  the site linking to you has relevancy and provide DoFollow link . It would be even better to purchase advertising space from other sites in your niche that has high page rank and traffic so, you get traffic to your site without sending traffic away from your site.

            KeriMorgret roquelagellera 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • DougRoberts
              DougRoberts @ClaireH-184886 last edited by

              Hi Diane, I can completely relate to the problem of stolen content. I'd come to accept that for one particular project content will be "stolen".

              As Greg says, try contacting the webmaster and asked for proper credit and a link back. (Although, make sure you actually want a link back from the site first!) They may be more responsive to this than a request to remove the content...

              Another tactic is to embed links to other articles on my site. Make sure the links are absolute links (full domain/path). It would make moving the content around later a pain to manage, but does mean that if the content is copied and pasted onto a different site, you'll be getting the inbound links. Make sure the links a relevant/useful. I like to reference my older content etc.

              Hope this helps.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ClaireH-184886
                ClaireH-184886 @ClaireH-184886 last edited by

                thank you for that advice everyone on contacting the author, i will start doing that. It is very annoying when you work on an article and then people take it or use part of it without you getting any glory for it.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • gcdtechnologies
                  gcdtechnologies @ClaireH-184886 last edited by

                  Hi Diane, I'm sure that's very frustrating. It's certainly worth contacting the Webmasters to request that the content is removed or credited correctly, and you can also file a removal request with Google.

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • AndreVanKets
                    AndreVanKets @ClaireH-184886 last edited by

                    Diane, try contact the author and request that they reference the original source and threaten that if they don't, you will report them to Google.

                    You can file a DMCA request with Google to remove pages that are stealing your content.

                    Read here for more info: http://www.ecreativeim.com/blog/2011/12/report-stolen-content-to-google/

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • ClaireH-184886
                      ClaireH-184886 @gcdtechnologies last edited by

                      thanks for that alice. The problem we have had in trying to gain one way links is, our content is being stolen and we are not getting the credit for it.

                      People also use sections of our content but never add a link to our site which is very frustrating.

                      AndreVanKets gcdtechnologies ClaireH-184886 DougRoberts 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • AndreVanKets
                        AndreVanKets @gcdtechnologies last edited by

                        I agree with Alice.

                        I ignore most link exchange requests, however i do find the odd website with great authority and rather than simply exchanging links on links pages, I try to to discuss and negotiate exchanging links via guest articles or editing an existing (relevant) piece of content with our link.

                        This doesn't happen often though, but its sometimes worth analyzing each request to find the gems. (Real webmasters promoting their REAL websites, and not some agency creating websites just for link exchange)

                        Greg

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • gcdtechnologies
                          gcdtechnologies last edited by

                          Hi Diane, link exchanges have the potential to do more harm than good, especially if:

                          • The link partner is low authority and/or low quality
                          • The link partner is in an unrelated niche
                          • The link partner has lots of other outbound links

                          One-way links give a lot more juice than link exchanges, so it's better in the long run to invest time and effort into producing quality content on your own site that might attract links. I would only ever consider a link exchange - on an individual basis rather than a scheme, which is against Webmaster guidelines) if the site was high quality, useful to my readers, in my niche but not a competitor, and had the potential to give me a lot of traffic through direct clicks.

                          Google guidelines on link schemes may help to clarify: http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=66356

                          AndreVanKets ClaireH-184886 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                          • 1 / 1
                          • First post
                            Last post

                          Got a burning SEO question?

                          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                          Start my free trial


                          Browse Questions

                          Explore more categories

                          • Moz Tools

                            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                          • SEO Tactics

                            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                          • Community

                            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                          • Digital Marketing

                            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                          • Research & Trends

                            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                          • Support

                            Connect on product support and feature requests.

                          • See all categories

                          Related Questions

                          • NCOREGSEO

                            Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links

                            Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne

                            Link Building | | NCOREGSEO
                            0
                          • Cocoonfxmedia

                            Partner links - is this bad?

                            I have been looking at whys to get natural links, another SEO company said that instead of doing Guest Blog Posts there now adding single links to partner pages on websites which have a follow link.  To me this sounds like basically a links page rebadged as a partners page.  Is this a dangerous practice? or does this carry some weight with the search engines?

                            Link Building | | Cocoonfxmedia
                            0
                          • T-J-I

                            Nasty links

                            Hi My first q on here (hoorah!), and it's about links (boo!). I've got what appears to be a handful (but worryingly, increasing in number) of links pointing to my site like this: http://condos.mrgulffront.com/florida-condos-for-sale/320-scenic-gulf-drive-miramar-beach-fl-32550-mls-567591/ I've made contact with the sites concerned, and had only one positive response who flatly denied all knowledge of it. The issue (as far as I can see) is that as in the above example the links (on the bottom right in the grey box) are forever changing so not always visible. Can anyone offer any guidance as to these kinds of nasty links.... I'm right at the v beginning on this "path of seo understanding" so please don't assume prior knowledge! Thanks in advance.... tom

                            Link Building | | T-J-I
                            0
                          • lucek

                            Are links with space considered to be the same as links with %20?

                            I wonder if Google would consider those three links to be the same? http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test page.html http://www.example.com/test+page.html

                            Link Building | | lucek
                            0
                          • OneMedical

                            A link with "return false"- OSE sees as a No Followed Link

                            Hello, I couldn't find a clear answer to the impact on SEO for a link written in this way: [" class="expert_info" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=) [Does the "return false" act as a "no follow"? I came across this in our link data in Open Site Explorer which lists these links all as "no follows." However, an engineer I spoke to said that it shouldn't impact search engine behavior. Any ideas? Thank you in advance! -Sarah K.](w</span>ww.yourwebsite.com<span style=)

                            Link Building | | OneMedical
                            0
                          • babski

                            What is Hub Linking

                            What is Hub Linking - an seo company mentioned it to me? Is it any good?

                            Link Building | | babski
                            0
                          • onlinemediadirect

                            Links on the same keyword

                            When is linking from one particular keyword to much. At what point could link building from one keyword be considered spam and potentially delist a site ? Is it possible for a site to be delisted for having to many links from the same keyword ? Heard linking from the website name is more important following recent changes. I try and link from a selection of 3 to 4 keywords. Thanks for your help

                            Link Building | | onlinemediadirect
                            0
                          • pricefutures

                            Link Frequency

                            I understand that good link building is all about the quality of the link / the anchor text attached to it. But, what about frequency? Should I build until I can't build anymore? or create a plan to submit links to a certain # of sites per week/month?

                            Link Building | | pricefutures
                            0

                          Get started with Moz Pro!

                          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                          Start my free trial
                          Products
                          • Moz Pro
                          • Moz Local
                          • Moz API
                          • Moz Data
                          • STAT
                          • Product Updates
                          Moz Solutions
                          • SMB Solutions
                          • Agency Solutions
                          • Enterprise Solutions
                          Free SEO Tools
                          • Domain Authority Checker
                          • Link Explorer
                          • Keyword Explorer
                          • Competitive Research
                          • Brand Authority Checker
                          • MozBar Extension
                          • MozCast
                          Resources
                          • Blog
                          • SEO Learning Center
                          • Help Hub
                          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                          • How-to Guides
                          • Moz Academy
                          • API Docs
                          About Moz
                          • About
                          • Team
                          • Careers
                          • Contact
                          Why Moz
                          • Case Studies
                          • Testimonials
                          Get Involved
                          • Become an Affiliate
                          • MozCon
                          • Webinars
                          • Practical Marketer Series
                          • MozPod
                          Connect with us

                          Contact the Help team

                          Join our newsletter
                          Moz logo
                          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                          • Accessibility
                          • Terms of Use
                          • Privacy

                          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.