Good Link Partners
A good link partnership should be a win-win relationship for both parties involved. Unfortunately, there are too many site owners who think only they should benefit from a link swap. Granted, we may wish to link to other sites simply because we think there is value for our own visitors. These tips aren’t for those one way links but, rather, for the link swapping relationship. Choose your link partners carefully, make sure they’re legitimate and monitor your incoming links well.
Toolbars like Google’s and Alexa’s will come in handy when choosing and evaluating your link partners. The Alexa toolbar and give you a rough idea how much traffic a site gets but keep in mind this only tracks for people who also have the toolbar installed. Does the site have a PR? If it does, good, and if it doesn’t try to determine why. Check out their domain whois information. If the site is new, under six months or so, this could explain why they have no PR. If the site has been around for years and has no PR or a PR of 0, you may wish to stay away from this site.
If they have a PR, go to their links page. It should be linked from their homepage. It’s better if the page name doesn’t have the words “link” or “link partners” in it. Does their main link page have a PR? If the site’s homepage has a PR and their main links page does not, try to determine why. Is the page very new? Does it have good organization and categories or does it only have very few links or categories on it? Go back to the homepage and view its source. Take a look at the link to their links page. Some sites who aren’t interested in a win-win relationship will have “no follow” with their link to their links page, instructing search engines not to visit that page. This is good for them but bad for you as it is seen as a one way link from your site to their site. Do a search within the page’s code for any “no follow” instructions. If they’re there, try to determine if the use is legitimate. Take a look at their robots.txt file to see if they disallow the links pages. If you are suspicious, move on and find another link partner.
While on their links page, note the URL. Make sure it’s the same domain, exactly, as their homepage. Some sites will have their links page on another domain name so it makes your link show as a one way link inbound to them while they link to you from another domain. There are sites that will setup a subdomain for their links page, like links.domainname.com. Avoid these sites as well. If you have the Google toolbar installed, check backlinks for their links page. Again, if no links to their links page, move on.
After you establish a link relationship, check your reciprocal links often, around once a month. Some site owners have a bad habit of constantly changing the placement of links, so your link could be on “resources1.html” today, “resources2.html” tomorrow and again on “resources3.html next week. If this happens, kindly request they keep your link on one page and leave it there. Another common trick is when they place your link and after some time remove it, thinking you won’t check it anymore. If this happens, and you’re sure the link wasn’t moved just remove the link to them.
Pay attention who you link to and keep track of your link partners. Best of luck!
