I am going to have to revisit this topic, since Jagger is not yet over yet. But lots of the speculation is that the Jagger update, taking place over at Google, is killing the benefits of most of the reciprocal link building campaigns. A thread at Search Engine Watch Forums named Reciprocal Linking – Dead or Alive? discusses just that.
It is worth while to jump over to the thread and read the introduction of the thread. Then, I'll put out some quotes for you which share some of the main views.
Ok, here they are;
bhartzer says, referring to discounting reciprocal links at Google;
They've actually been doing that for a while now.
Then of course people argue with that statement, but I think Jill Whalen sums it up best in this post;
I would imagine, you'd want those reciprocal links even more if there were no search engines as you'd need more ways for people to find your sites.I was doing recip. linking in the mid 90's when it wasn't for search rankings at all...just plain old traffic and getting the word out. Good recip links still work that way today.
Note that I said GOOD ONES though. Unfortunately, most people these days aren't looking for good ones...or aren't getting them, or something. They're just getting any old linkx, which is just dumb.
Sounds very Eric Ward like...
