Many of the gurus of top search engine optimization tell us that we must perform link exchanges and many of them to reach the top of search engines.

But is this still true?

Once when it was certainly the case and that was enough to make you highly qualified. Today, with the huge increase in Internet usage and web sites, search engines have wised up to this and have complex algorithms for the development of their ranking. These are of course a closely guarded secret known to a few geeks in the interior, and guessing by those abroad.

Many experts in search engine optimization are now telling us to be careful to exchange links and consider the following key points.

1) link farms - if your connection is what the search engines rank as a link farm then you can hurt your ranking. A link farm is often a site full of links, or a page with a large number of links in them. If the link farm is organized in categories with only a couple dozen links per page, then it is less likely to damage your ranking.

2) irrelevant sites - if your website focuses on children after exchanging links with sites of pharmacy and gambling, so it might hurt your ranking, as they are not really relevant. Have links to sites other children and child-related sites can much better for their classification and give you the relevance of your web site more.

3) Anchor text - the words from another site linking to yours are actually very relevant to your ranking in search engines. If the words "Hello Stranger" was a hyperlink to your site, then it really does not do much good unless your site was about strangers. However, if your site has been on children and their main keyword was "good father" and has links from other sites with the words "good father" is the hyperlink, this will be viewed favorably by the search engines

When you are exchanging links with anyone, it's worth your time to be discerning about the links. Yes, I know I want as many links as possible, but keep in mind the relevance of links to its visitors, and also what your visitors think about the links being in place. If there was a place full of children's games and educational material and lots of links to related sites adults, what do you think parents would want their children to visit their sites?

Always check if a site is linking to has an affiliate program. If they do, then it is worth to subscribe to this service and put the affiliate link on your site. Why? Because then, when someone follows the link and buys, you get paid for it!

By keeping the exchange of relevant links that you can increase your position in search engines and give your readers valuable additional resources.