Is link exchanging a wise practice for link building?

I have been reaching out to lots of blogs in my niche looking to get the opportunity to guest post. Some agree and everything is fine, others want some crazy "editorial" fee to publish a piece that I write and others say they will do it if i allow them to guest post in return.

I allow guest blogging on my site, the experience has been quite positive in terms of the content I have gotten. My concern is if all of the new backlinks my site gets are also sites that I link to. Should i think twice about this practice or is it ok?

I only allow backlinks to sites in my niche. I always reject badly written content. I will only publish something that I would be happy to have written myself. If the post quality is good and the backlink is a relative niche, am I safe to proceed with link exchange instead of seeking a guest blog only?

similar discussion here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/do-guest-posts-ever-harm-your-website.1096712/

Not the best idea. If you want to do link exchanges, it's best to do it indirectly. You will need more than one site for this. So if you want a link from site X to your site A, you give them a link from your site B. That way it's not a direct link exchange. But of course, the niches need to be related for it to work.