Is it Safe to do Link-exchange ?

kurosaki4d

kurosaki4d

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Hello there,

I've been carefully doing Link building "white-hat" from some good sites for over a year now, and so far it's been successful.

Along the way, I've had a few opportunities for acquiring links from some pretty big good sites. However, they were asking for "direct link exchange". (no A-B-C)

So I'm wondering, is it safe to do some link exchange now and then? Or are there any special ways to do it correctly?

Please advise if you have done this in the past on several occasions without any google penalizations.


Thank you for your valuable insights
 
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I've done it a couple of times without penalty.

I try to:
- Not do it often.
- Make sure the other site haven't been doing it much either. Check how many links are linking to them and how many they are linking out to.
- Make sure the links are not exchanged on the same day.

I know some sites have this as their main linking strategy. I avoid them like the plague.

If their site is big, has a lot of traffic and a clean backlink profile - I'd say go for it. Just don't overdo it, as this type of exchange would be easy for Google to identify.
 
That's a sound advice. Thank you mate!

I don't plan to use this as a main strategy of course, but only on rare occasions where some big sites require it.

Zbigniew said:
- Make sure the other site haven't been doing it much either. Check how many links are linking to them and how many they are linking out to.
Click to expand...
- How can I verify that?

Zbigniew said:
- Make sure the links are not exchanged on the same day
Click to expand...
- If I acquire a backlink from them, how much time is it safe to wait before I ask them to link to to me in return?
 
kurosaki4d said:
- How can I verify that?
Click to expand...
With Ahrefs standard or higher: Export the site's referring domains and linked domains into a spreadsheet. Look for values that appear in both columns.

Without Ahrefs: Export the site's backlinks. Use Screaming Frog/Xenu's Link Sleuth to get external links on the site. Apply a regex to get domains from URLs. Again, look for duplicate values.
 
If your site is abusing backlinks – if you're trying to manipulate search results by exchanging links – your website runs a high risk of being penalized by Google.
 
DMoon95 said:
If your site is abusing backlinks – if you're trying to manipulate search results by exchanging links – your website runs a high risk of being penalized by Google.
Click to expand...

@Zbigniew @DMoon95

What if I add a "no-follow" attribute to the link, in that case will it still be picked up by Google?
 
dalakus said:
"nofollow" or even better "sponsored" would be fine in my opinion
Click to expand...
If I add sponsored in the link present in my website, doesn't that imply to Google that there was some kind of agreement/payment made?
 
kurosaki4d said:
If I add sponsored in the link present in my website, doesn't that imply to Google that there was some kind of agreement/payment made?
Click to expand...
that's the point of using it, so google understand that it is in fact an AD and therefore they will treat it like a nofollow link.
Check these articles to know more about that:

developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/qualify-outbound-links

semrush.com/blog/nofollow-sponsored-and-ugc-links-guide
 
Thanks for the links, I didn't now they were recommending it themselves.

Well if I do that, won't it beat the all point of link building?

By adding sponsored or nofollow that will take away all the link juice? I'm I missing something?
 
kurosaki4d said:
Thanks for the links, I didn't now they were recommending it themselves.

Well if I do that, won't it beat the all point of link building?

By adding sponsored or nofollow that will take away all the link juice? I'm I missing something?
Click to expand...
Yes, this is true, but it's the only way if you want to be safe and add a lot of external links, also nofollow links will still have a little SEO impact.
Keep in mind the amount of links matters, You can have follow links and even exchange them if the amount are low (Depends on your website reputation, but a maximum of 3 followed backlinks are usually safe to prevent getting any penalties by google)
 
kurosaki4d said:
Thanks for the links, I didn't now they were recommending it themselves.

Well if I do that, won't it beat the all point of link building?

By adding sponsored or nofollow that will take away all the link juice? I'm I missing something?
Click to expand...
I wouldn't think it would be such a black and white factor, but I have always chosen the old lazy way and used follow only, and I expect others to do the same for me. The web is first built on good follow links. That's good enough for me in the properties we need to work with.
 
dalakus said:
Yes, this is true, but it's the only way if you want to be safe and add a lot of external links, also nofollow links will still have a little SEO impact.
Keep in mind the amount of links matters, You can have follow links and even exchange them if the amount are low (Depends on your website reputation, but a maximum of 3 followed backlinks are usually safe to prevent getting any penalties by google)
Click to expand...

Hmmm, did you mean a "maximum of 3 follow link exchanges" ?

If Yes, then 3 per what? Per each 100 regular backlinks acquired, or how would you go by calculating this maximum factor? Is there a known ratio?
 
Panther28 said:
I wouldn't think it would be such a black and white factor, but I have always chosen the old lazy way and used follow only, and I expect others to do the same for me. The web is first built on good follow links. That's good enough for me in the properties we need to work with.
Click to expand...

So, you've done link exchange before? If yes, you use regular do-follow links?

Is there a ratio that you follow to stay on the safe side?
 
kurosaki4d said:
So, you've done link exchange before? If yes, you use regular do-follow links?

Is there a ratio that you follow to stay on the safe side?
Click to expand...
Don't link sites on the same subdomain as they might have a similar number of domains as subdomains on the root, and then you end up cross-pollinating your shiznit.

That's the only rule I've followed, remember the best type of link is the main difference of referring domains, not backlinks, so if you are dealing with smaller webmasters you might find they host many sites on the same host, and you want to avoid that. Don't worry about a ratio, just follow at least some of the money, and make your procedures and checks bulletproof.
 
I wouldn't really advise that. But sometimes here and there you can do. But the check the website and analyse before going ahead.
 
Panther28 said:
Don't link sites on the same subdomain as they might have a similar number of domains as subdomains on the root, and then you end up cross-pollinating your shiznit.

That's the only rule I've followed, remember the best type of link is the main difference of referring domains, not backlinks, so if you are dealing with smaller webmasters you might find they host many sites on the same host, and you want to avoid that. Don't worry about a ratio, just follow at least some of the money, and make your procedures and checks bulletproof.
Click to expand...

"Referring domains" is more important than total backlinks. I'll surely keep that in mind!! Best Advice so far!

You might find they host many sites on the same host, and you want to avoid that
Click to expand...

If I may ask how do you make your checking procedures for these sites? @Vinyas Gowda @Panther28
 
kurosaki4d said:
If I may ask how do you make your checking procedures for these sites?
Click to expand...
Ping the website to get its IP address and enter it into a reverse DNS lookup tool.

The below one finds every A record I have, thus exposing all the domains on my server.
hackertarget.com/reverse-ip-lookup/
Click to expand...
 
kurosaki4d said:
Hmmm, did you mean a "maximum of 3 follow link exchanges" ?

If Yes, then 3 per what? Per each 100 regular backlinks acquired, or how would you go by calculating this maximum factor? Is there a known ratio?
Click to expand...
In our niche, we place backlinks on all of our pages, so that would mean maximum 3 different external domains overall to be safe. Same for single page, maximum 3 backlinks...
If you have a strong website/domain then you can increase it. On my 15-year-old domain, I've 10 follow backlinks on every page on the sidebar of my website for years, but I won't increase it anymore, some of our competitors have more than 15 backlinks on every page...
Also, keep in mind I don't make any link exchanges, so google can of course be more aggressive in exchanging backlinks...
 
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