(8)
The top of asking for links, is nothing new. We wrote about link exchanges dozens of times here, heck we know that Tuesday mornings is the best time to send them out to convince people to link to you.
But in 2010, are link exchanges emails still worth it? When you get a link exchange request, do you delete the email without looking? Do you bother reading link exchange emails? Do you bother replying? Do you send them out yourself?
Take our poll:
A WebmasterWorld thread is having a debate on this topic now. Moderator, martinibuster, said:
Virtually ever link request I have received for at least the last six years has been useless trash. If I put a rule on my inbox to permanently delete any email with typical link request subject lines, I am confident I will not miss reading them.Is it possible that we have reached the end of blind reciprocal link requests and it's time the industry stopped sending them?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
Comments:
Kevin
08/09/2010 01:13 pm
I still have a ton of success with link request emails -- but I suppose it depends on who you're targeting and what kind of resource you're pitching.
Ian P
08/09/2010 02:55 pm
Yep, I get loads of link requests. I confess I do read them but I'll only take a look at the requesting site if they show in their email that they've actually visited my sites. Otherwise, straight in the trash. I'm generally quite open to link relationships but emails from sites that aren't relevant really annoy me though, just half-assed link building.
Michael Martinez
08/09/2010 05:19 pm
I block typical SEO link requests with email filters. The few link requests that get through are not coming from people who care about Toolbar PageRank and search engine results. Keeping that in mind, my responsiveness to link requests has skyrocketed over the past year.
Becky Sharpe
08/09/2010 06:04 pm
Those I get tend to be copying at least one aspect of my business model - so direct competition. Others want free advertising for their business, so I used to direct them to our rates page. I am fascinated by the mantra that links are good for both of us; I can see they would benefit by my significant traffic, but I get a bit lost at the notion that a new and invisible site is going to be good for me. I've given up suggesting a paid link as the response was always shocked horror, and the suggestion that I don't fully understand the egalitarian ethos of the internet.
Shawn McConnell
08/10/2010 01:08 am
I Haven't received requests myself but i guess you have to look at where your site is positioned, most webmasters will look at domain authority and page rank first before sending requests out.
Malte Landwehr
08/12/2010 12:10 pm
I never read them but I know that some people still send out a lot of them on a daily basis AND have success with this method.
Mahesh
08/22/2010 02:05 pm
I am not generally getting in inbox. But i prefer article writing and direct link exchange. In my site, Every visitor link is shared in five different pages. But i haven't got any emails :-)
SEO Professionals
08/22/2011 06:32 am
Link exchange has proved to be one of the easiest ways for a website, especially a just-out one, to get the thick net of backlinks needed for high rankings in Google. All you need is to find a hoped-for link-exchange partner (a website relevant to your business niche and already in good with Google), put a link to it from your page and get a link pointing to your site from his page. What can be easier, especially when there are all kinds of link-exchange software to help you up? Yet even this "easiest" way has its pitfalls, minimizing the payoff of this traffic- and sales-promising strategy. And writing convincing link-exchange requests for most website owners turns out to be the main one.