Warning to all newbies about exchanging links for traffic

[agentsmith]

Just in case you're another one of those newbies exchanging links with any website you can find in order to boost your traffic or getting better positions from search engines...........

it doesn't really work that way!

Link exchange has been around for a long long itme now, and to some extend, it's still a very good marketing trick to pull people to your site. However, if you add link 50-100 links a month, and another 50-100 links the next month, I wonder where you get all that links from,

free for all link farms? outdated sites?

and you think those links are worth your time to exchange?
what matters even more, the quality of the traffic they bring in, and the image they have on your site being linked from those sites, are you a cheapo? do they stay longer than 30 seconds on your site per visit?

and search engine positions, do you really think that by linking to all that sites, you're gonna be top ten in search engines? think again, they value the links you're linked from, and if those are not from high quality sites, it's not gonna do you good, plus, they might even ban you if you're linking to rubbish sites,

so, my advice is, don't go for crazy link exchanges in an attempt to get more traffic, instead, build your traffic from other sources, blogs, video blogs, email marketing, until you're soemthing already, then you exchange links with established sites, thats why your site needs to be established in the first place, byh doing this, in the long run, you'll eventually rank higher and higher, without linking to hundreds of websites yet dropping lower and lower.

[sourabhweb]

Hello.Smith, this is Sourabh here.

I have visited several link exchanges & all are claiming to be the top.

Can you tell me what should be the exact price if i buy a quality one way link from them?

Some link exchanges are charging 4$ per link for PR4.

Isn't it costly?

And, do you think article writing can help me to get some quality inbound links to my website?

If anyone tell me about some great article submission website, it would be nice for me.

Cheers!!

[athmane]

Hi Sourab,

I personally would not pay to get a link from these so-called link exchanges. It's just a waste of time - and money -: your link gets bundled with a dozen others and the PR gets diluted. You probably end up getting a PR0 link.
The most important thing however is this: how relevant is the link exchange to your website? Google takes relevancy very seriously in deciding the quality of a backlink.

Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to get my backlinks from relevant sites by writing to the webmaster of the said site and asking for a link back. I prefer to write articles with my resource box and get listed in authority sites (hopefully). It will take time to get good backlinks but it's quality backlinks you're getting and that's what really matters for your ranking once Google starts its dance again.

[sourabhweb]

Hello, thanks for your reply.

Can you tell me some popular article submission websites?

I am thinking to submit some artilces to these websites.

Regards,
Sourabh.

[athmane]

Here are some of the article web directories I regularly submit to:

http://www.isnare.com
http://www.goarticles.com
http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.about.com (browse to the most relevant category, and then email the editor with your article).

The problem with the Article directories nowadays is their relative low PR, and the huge number of articles which dilutes the already-low PR.

I prefer to search for authority websites in my field and then submit articles for inclusion. For instance, I regularly write articles about French Translation and then submit to relevant authority websites. My search on google yielded Proz.com, TranslatorsCafe.com and a few others (all these websites have a PR of 6 and above). I email the webmaster of the site with my article and kindly ask to share it with their visitors (I stress the benefits to their audience). I have now a few articles listed there - complete with my signature box :wink: - and I can tell you they made a great boost to my Google rankings overnight

Remember that the name of the game is "relevancy". Try to submit to high PR sites which are relevant to the theme of your website.

[sourabhweb]

hello, thanks for the article sites.

I will try to write keping in mind the relevency of my website.

Anyway can you tell me how to create a signature box?

Regards,

Sourabh.

[athmane]

Hi Sourab,

To write a signature box, put your name and a brief discription of your website, the service you're offering or the prodct you're selling. The most important thing is to link to your website (this is called anchor text) using your target keyword. Anchor text is used by Google algorthim (and other major search engine algorithms) in ranking your webiste.

Here's an example of a signature box I use:

------------------------------------------
Athmane Kecir,
Professional freelane translator, providing < a href="my webistepage"> French to English Translations</a> and English to French Translations < a href="my website page</a>
------------------------------------------

As you can see, I link to my website pages using my most important keywords. The URL I link to is the relevant sub-page within my website. You can use different signature boxes to target the different keywords you use to optimise for search engines.

[agentsmith]

Excellent stuff!
That's a sound advice there.

Anytime of the year I'd go for techniques like that as in adding signatures and writing articles or press releases versus exchanging links from those scammy looking so-called link exchange experts

No offence to the real pros, but there's just too many scammers out there who'll promise you millions of traffic just by exchanging links to them!

In many cases, what they'll do is just get your contacts, so they can start sending you spam emails!

How else do you think 80% of the scammers out there have millions and millions of people in their mailing list! They spam you with their products or affiliate links, or, they sell their email lists to other spammers!

And, believe or or not, that's the truth!

[varun1182]

I truly agree with the idea of article submissions rather than exchanging links because this could be used by spammers in order to increase
link popularity and search engine rankings and search engines could ban the sites which participate in them as a result.

[montee51]

Its all about relevancy and also quality links over sheer numbers. as Ive mentioned before articles, blogs etc allows control over links and traffic building and allows you to react to trends and shifts in markets etc.

[varun1182]

To some extent I also believe that, link exchange is useful but in ONLY case, u submit ur links to relevant sites.. eg, exchanging link of ur webmaster tools site with some health site, will be harmful..