Reciprocal Link Vs Back Link?

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GMac222

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Hi All

Noobie here first post. I've had an ecommerce website for a few years selling merchandise that through feckin hard work I managed to get either top of google or in the top 5 results for most of my keywords and it's not doing too badly so far. I did this completley by reading through the google webmaster stuff and following its advice. One of the main things I would say got me top was the reciprocal links I built up with relevant sites.
I was introduced to BHW just the other day and looking at what everyone is saying on here I can't believe how niave I've been. Question is: I see lots of backlink ads on here and I can appreciate this will appear to make your site seem popular so now I ask myself how important are reciprocal links and was my hard work worth it? I always thought google preferred to see a 'web' of related content and not just links to your site on irrelevent pages. Surely google can differentiate between a blog page and a well put together relevant site that ticks all their boxes?

Cheers :)
 
I dont really get your question...

1. you should avoid reciprocal links if it is too obvious that pages "belong to the same person" because this could be identified with a "link farm" which can result in a punishment by google.
2. this does - in my opinion - not count for relevant sites that have a really different backlink structure because then there is no "prove" for a link farm.
3. you can avoid this "problem" if you do not link reciproc but from let say A to B and from C to A, but your effort is not "wasted" or anything - ur SERP results prove that if I understand your post correctly?
 
Thanks for your reply. I've not heard of link farm before and I only own the one site so I've never linked into other sites I own before. I achieved my reciprocal links by emailing the site owner of a relevant site to the market I am in and asking for a reciprocal link, did about 10 a day by getting relevant sites from the link pages of their sites and also googling for them. I also put up on my links page html code and a banner with instructions if somebody else wanted a reciprocal link from my site to their own and I got plenty of emails for this.
 
Depending on your competition ten links a day may not cut it particularly if you are selling merchandise. Consider the fact that some Black Hat member regularly pump thousands of links during a daily campaign.
 
Hi All

Noobie here first post. I've had an ecommerce website for a few years selling merchandise that through feckin hard work I managed to get either top of google or in the top 5 results for most of my keywords and it's not doing too badly so far. I did this completley by reading through the google webmaster stuff and following its advice. One of the main things I would say got me top was the reciprocal links I built up with relevant sites.
I was introduced to BHW just the other day and looking at what everyone is saying on here I can't believe how niave I've been. Question is: I see lots of backlink ads on here and I can appreciate this will appear to make your site seem popular so now I ask myself how important are reciprocal links and was my hard work worth it? I always thought google preferred to see a 'web' of related content and not just links to your site on irrelevent pages. Surely google can differentiate between a blog page and a well put together relevant site that ticks all their boxes?

Cheers :)

You've raised some interesting points. What Google should/claims to do and what it actually does are widely separate affairs.

I've read webmaster tools, Google blogs, even Google patents - and they all seem to suggest what you're talking about, that Google wants to see a web of relevant well put together content.

Given their known computing power, it's puzzling that Google either cannot (or choose not to) make things the way they seem to want them to be.

Simple fact #1: Comment spam from high PR non-related websites works almost every time.

As for reciprocal links, I would never engage in them personally - if two sites are teaming up to get better Google positions, it smacks of manipulation.
 
Depending on your competition ten links a day may not cut it particularly if you are selling merchandise. Consider the fact that some Black Hat member regularly pump thousands of links during a daily campaign.

But surely the proof is in the pudding? I.e I'm top of Google and I've done it organically too.

Two relevant sites linking together is exactly what the google guide says to do, it creates a 'web' of relevant information, don't really understand how that can be misinterpreted as manipulation? Perhaps if it was part of one of these link farms do you mean?
 
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