3-Way Links

There has been much talk over recent months, especially with the latest update of Google, on the value of linking. What kind of links are better than the rates are still seen as adding value to a website. For if the truth be told, the only people who can tell us we're not saying anything. I mean the engineers from Google and other search engines, the same people that is what determines the value of all links.

According to some people in search firms different engine optimization, reciprocal links are no longer being considered to determine the popularity of web site links. Like many of the theories of search engine optimization other outside engineering labs, no one really knows for sure. I have read some reports that have been issued on this subject and these reports are not conclusive, offering little more than contradictory examples for several days of testing.

So aside from a wait and see what happens the next position, what can we do? Rather than taking a reactive position of this uncertainty I think it would be better to go ahead and be proactive to change my linking strategies. As long as there is any dispute with regard to reciprocal links, does not really make much sense to rely on them to help build link popularity.

Personally, I still value in reciprocal links as a valid means for commercial traffic and will continue to use however, as lack of information is increasingly being spread across the Internet will be increasingly difficult to exchange links with sites quality. So what is a webmaster to do now that this type of linkage seems to be dying out? Simple - adapt or disappear from the search radar. Well Google's radar anyway.

For clients of my practice, I'm going to suggest to be very selective in which links with the now. Devote more time to the evaluation of potential link partners. If the site to meet your web development standards and the issue of binding site coincides with the site in some way, then go ahead and trade links.

Before the commercial links with any site that you must ensure that the partner site is putting your link on a page that has "topic in the" content instead of a page that contains only links to chance. If possible trade relations only sites that use some form of directory system so that all links in any particular part of a similar theme page. It also suggests that created its own directory tree style system divided into categories and each page of each category must contain a current block of text that unites all the possible links between them. Creating your own system like this will make the link with the most convenient.

Another strategy is advising my clients to use three way links. For those of you who do not know what that is three links is a brief description, simplistic: A site links to the site eh B, site B links to Site C, C site links to Site A. quite simple? The process is fairly simple, but the application often is not. The only way three-way links is when all parties are honest and are willing to maintain these links.

I recently tested one of my sites and found that approximately 80% of sites that sell links to not honor our agreement. Now I hoped there would be some lazy webmasters out there who would be less reliable, but never expected the number to be so high.

While reciprocal linking is not too difficult a task that requires a certain amount of time and effort. To have some unscrupulous webmaster who cheat with your link in your reciprocal treatment is bad enough, but having a place to make a 3 way link arrangement is even worse.

It looks like a 3 way linking agreement requires little more effort because of the need to document all information regarding this agreement. If you are going to go through all that effort to establish a three-way handshake agreement that you certainly do not want a partner to sour the deal for the abandonment of a link without notifying any of the other partners.

The extra work required to establish a successful way of linking arrangement 3 is not too difficult, it's all about keeping records. After investigating the two sites that you feel most appropriate to your way exchange of three links, you will have contact with them to invite the exchange. More than likely you will have to design the plan and explain why an agreement 3-way link is good and make sure they understand that the only way it works is if everyone involved is open, honest and upfront all.

As part of research for 3-way trade will want to ensure that the three sites are somehow related. Not necessarily in direct competition with each other, but connected in some way like the way a restaurant would be similar to a web page of the hotel and the hotel site would be similar to a publishing site. Pretty simple really as a hotel may contain a bar or restaurant is not too unreasonable to think that these three companies based service could be related in some way.

Once you have collected the three places you would like to exchange links with to ensure that thorough investigations. The things you want to be checking for are;

Page Rank
IP
Quality
Age of the sites
The current link popularity

Page Rank
When you check Page Rank you are looking to make sure everyone is in a similar PR. Do not get greedy and automatically suggests that your site must be linked from the site with higher PR. Indeed, it could be a good idea to suggest that the higher PR site must link to low PR site. Doing so can make the offer seems a little sweeter.

IP
That would be better if all three sites were on different IP addresses. Sites that are all living in the same IP address can be misconstrued as part of a link farm. Why risk it?

Quality
This should be obvious. If the site is not a quality that you would recommend to friends and family to visit why you want to risk the credibility of your site by suggesting that people go to him? Rule of thumb here the quality is as follows: if not bookmark the site itself, not linked to it.

Age of Sites
The age of the site is important for the old sandbox effect alleged delay in Google's algorithms. If the site is too new then you may have to wait for the site to mature before it gives weight to the links to move from that site. You should try to ensure that sites included in your path linking three at least 1 year of age or older. There is no guarantee that the sites of more than one year will be mature enough, but at least the odds are better.

The current link popularity
The reason you want to check link popularity is the most current research on the history link. Is that currently trade links with sites that may be considered a bad neighborhood. How they relate to gambling, pornography or FFA sites? If they do and are not part of the game or world of pornography and its place is not good then do not link to them.

Three ways to link this way back to the days when the link was more natural. This type of link that show search engines that you value their link recommendations and hence the search engines value them as well. If the search engines trust your site to make these recommendations, there is no way the diligence applied because they get into trouble with search engines.