Reciprocal links
-
Are they worth anything, if they are from relevant sites? I'm I better off avoiding linking back wherever possible?
-
I think our situation falls into that of the gentleman with the NYT links, except our sites aren't quite that bad. We do occasional round-up posts (ie: best co-working spaces, etc.) and some of those folks link back to us to show that they were included. Is that OK?
-
We typically add an accreditation link (follow, to us) into the footer of all websites we build, and if the client also supplies a "testimonial" to us, then we add that to our testimonial page with a link (follow) back to the client website.
Is this good or bad?
-
Not at all, I think it's quite obvious to both the user and Google that you're not doing anything manipulative, but merely linking to your (well-earned, no doubt) citation in a major publication.
Furthermore, you're never going to be seen to be linking to a suspicious site if it's the NYT!
-
I have some great links from the New York Times, do you think it is unwise to link back to them if I find a useful article?
Can this really be seen as a reciprocal link!?
-
Not really. By definition of the PageRank algorithm, having an external link on your page means the PageRank the page has passes off the website, but the amount lost (if any) put against the amount gained by having the link is negligible.
The main concern is that if your website is deemed to be linking to poor quality, spammy or hacked websites, then Google may look upon yours dis-favourably But I can't see that being a problem here.
-
Thanks Tom.
For one site in particular I have some very good reasons to link back and forth with another related and trusted site - I just wanted to be sure that I wasn't endangering myself by linking back.
Does it 'water down' the link juice if the link is reciprocal?
-
Reciprocal links get a pretty bad rap, for pretty solid reasons. Link exchanges with masses of sites, whatever the relevance, does look pretty unnatural and may flag up as a link network. We definitely don't want that.
However, if done sparingly and kept to really relevant and related sites, then it's a nice traffic sharer, link builder and authority builder. SEOMoz and Distilled pretty much have reciprocal links on the go, but that's because they're highly related and offer great content and work for one another. In turn, as a user you may be more inclined to visit either one from the other's website, while the endorsement can serve as an authority check.
I'm quite a fan of legitimate testimonials where link reciprocation occurs. That can look natural and, again, is a nice trust builder. I'd never go too crazy with reciprocal links and I'd only ever keep it to websites who are related to, have preferably worked or collaborated with you on a project and that you, yourself, would be proud to endorse professionally.
Follow that, and I think some reciprocal links can be OK. But there's no doubt that the tactic has been abused by some. Don't give Google any reason to think you've fallen into that bracket.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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.
Related Questions
-
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
Why Links from Top Level Domains doesn't Pass Link Equity?
Hello, I have a doubt about Equity-Passing links report of OpensiteExplorer.org According to Sam Weber http://moz.com/community/users/432678 links which pass value from one page to another including followed 301 and Meta refresh links are under Equity-Passing links. I am surprising after looking at the links report generated by opensiteexplorer.org. Most of the article and directory links which have low DA and PA are under Equity-Passing links. Whereas websites like EzineArticle or Articlebase which have good DA and PA are not found in either Equity-passing links or under only nofollow category. Please suggest me if the report of Opensiteexplorer is not good enough or the links from the site like Ezine Article doesn’t pass the link equity. Thanks.
Link Building | | TopLeagueTechnologies0 -
Disavow links
I am working on an account that has had several seo companies
Link Building | | JasperSEO
over the past year so around every corner I discover something new. One the
things I have found are that majority of links to the site is coming from an
outside blog but digging deeper I found that the blog is actually on the same
server as clients. Should I disavow links from that blog or should I leave it
alone?0 -
Reciprocal linking across holding
Hi there, I was wondering if the following setup might be harmful for SEO of is frowned upon by Google: I manage a couple of websites that belong to a specific company within a holding company. What is allowed regarding reciprocal linking? The current setup is like this: Site A: one-page general website about the holding, links to sites B, C, D on the homepage (follow link) Site B: website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link) Site 😄 website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link) Site 😧 website for a specific company branch, links to SITE A in the footer of each page (follow link) Sites B,C,D don't link to each other, which is a good thing I guess, but should I change the links to nofollow, or is this not so harmful?
Link Building | | RBenedict0 -
Link-Building
Hello, I have been doing link-building for my website since 2 of January. However those links are not in the Open Site Explorer. For example I have the DMOZ website pointing to my website and I cant see it in open site explorer! Why?? Tks in advance!
Link Building | | PedroM0 -
Linking Analyse
Hello, Im doing a research on the link-building analyze of 2 sites. What I want to know is whats the most important fact to analyze in the Open Site Explorer. And also can I see all the links connected to those sites in the Open Site Exporer or should I use other program to verify that? Tks in advance! Pedro Menezes Pereira
Link Building | | PedroM0 -
Directories and Link Building
I was reading a post by Eric Enge, http://www.seomoz.org/blog/role-of-directories-in-link-building and nobody talked about in the comments, so I want to see what you think: Considering that get some bad links from punished directories is bad for your site, it's worth to use site submissions softwares, like SubmitEaze, that promisses a 1,000 submits?
Link Building | | seomasterbrasil
Do you use it, what you think about it? [title edited by staff for clarity]0 -
Does linking to a subdomain give link juice to the main domain?
I have a few domains that I'm going to use for link building, will the link juice from the sub domains transfer to the main domain?
Link Building | | Vsky0