Link Exchanges for SEO: Don’t Bother!
This week the Google Webmaster Central blog, Google made a clear statement saying that any type of paid or exchanged link is almost as good as no link.
Their general advice:
Always focus on the users and not on search engines when developing your optimization strategy. Ask yourself what creates value for your users. Investing in the quality of your content and thereby earning natural backlinks benefits both the users and drives more qualified traffic to your site.
They mention that tactics like linkbait and good content should be some of the primary things that you focus on instead. Anything that helps improve the content on your site such that it contributes something to the greater community should give others a reason to link to you. Obviously any links you earn are still important, it’s just paid or exchanged links that are not really useful.
One thing that users should keep in mind, however… All search engines are not created equal. What doesn’t work in Google, sometimes works in Yahoo.
Happy SEOing.



