Link exchange : two words, probably billions are exchanged for this set of key phrase everyday on the Internet. In fact, it is very exciting topic from SEO point of view.
However, the topic is often difficult and stressful.
From our own experience, we can say that over 98% of link exchange requests through emails, comments etc better to be thrown directly to the trash can.
Why? This why this article is about Link exchange. One mistake can make you King to beggar or one right decision can make you King. So, many of us needs a checklist. Just tick mark in your virtual diary whether the points are fulfilled or not. If not, just reply politely, “actually, we are not interested that much for now about link building, link exchange or these things.” It does not matter whether the person thinks you a big fool or very clever. You need to decide for the best of your website or blog.
Who is the person sending you Link Exchange request?
If the person is known to you: through real World, Forum or anything, for a long time, then not much thought is required. You know the person, we have nothing to say.
If the request is via comment and you have a good contact us form, then it is probably better to ignore. Or if you are a bit optimistic, you can check who is the person by sending email from your secondary email account (to avoid spam).
Now, if it is via email, notice these things:
- Email address should look authentic. You probably see hundreds of spam email addresses, they have some peculiar correctors : starts or ends with Jr. Sr. , king, lord etc, most has arbitrary numbers; first part (before @) looks big some CEO’s email, but second part reveals a free email.
- How is the subject line? It is quite difficult to differentiate nowadays between a genuine and spam email!
- How it starts? We mean notice the salutation. For example, if you send me e-mail manually, it should look like: “Hello Dr.Abhishek” ; but most spammers or mass mailers writes “Hello” then comes to the next line to write about the the matter, that means, no mention of my name, just a Hi or Hello then the body starts. Notice the BMW lottery type scam, almost all are of this format.
- Body and end : Its almost impossible to understand if its a mass mail / auto generated or manually written from the body, unless the spammer is a fool. Notice the end. ” Thanks! ” , “God bless you” are almost hallmark of spam.
- Practically, Three English countries are relevant : U.S. , India and U.K. Most bloggers are from these three regions. Many Countries do not have strict regulations about Internet law still, spammers take the advantage to getting domains easily. Openly many things can not be written to avoid political things, use your knowledge gained from Television, Newspapers etc.
- Frankly, Dr. pseudonym is widely abused by spammers. Next is Lawyers. Some says they are CEO of some company, most are Inc. These are hallmarks of spam.
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How is the domain offering Link Exchange?
I really do not know, why people thinks, the person using WHOIS privacy is of top suspect. Is it very nice if my address, phone number and almost everything appear in the WHOIS? Google or other big search engines, get the real data on the background. WHOIS privacy is just to get masked from spammers for many individuals. Do not judge from this point. This is old concept and is totally biased.
Look for:
- Server Location: Obviously, bigger or growing Nations hosting the Server, reputed company as the server company holds a good ground to rely.
- You know the IP address of the email sender or commenter. Check your IP tracing data. Which browser is used, which Internet service provider the person uses etc. Masked IPs should arise suspect. A person using Mac and using IE 9 as browser simply establishes it is fake data!
- Content of the blog or website; nothing to write more.
- Existence of Domain Yahoo! directory, DMOZ listing is a bit authentic, though not fool proof. It establishes that at least one person has checked the domain before you.
- Alexa ranking and Compete ranking for the domain who offered for the Link Exchange: It should not look like a falling slope. That indicates, the site is probably getting penalized by Google.
- Search Google with the domain name. Sitelinks, Reviews should appear for better quality site. If home page does not appear by searching in domain, the site has been black listed by Google. So, no need to think more about that site, no question of Link Exchange!
- Pagerank has no value for determining site’s quality, if not >7. Most blogs hardly crosses 5.
General points for Link Exchange
- Most blogs uses nofollow for link exchange f not pure ignorent about SEO or over confident about dofollow trend. Not much to think about it. Any link today is dofollow might be nofollow next day by the blog owner.
- Most important is noindex. You will get an idea if you see our more friends link page. It is a no index page. Google not even read this page. So, if the blog owner has made a separate page, probably it is noindex page. Look the source code of the page.
- Links closest to right bottom and top left has most chance to get noticed by Google. It is almost impossible to get these positions.
- Alexa rank trend : as discussed ago; the trend is more important.
- Number of Twitter followers. >200 is great, >1200 or like that might rise suspicion of many twitter followers are bought, especially if the blog post news articles only. It is obvious, unique fine quality article posting blogs might get big number of followers.
- Same for FaceBook follower number. >10,000 is quite unnatural except for very well known and old blogs.
Conclusion about Link exchange
As we said earlier, Link building or Link exchange is not an easy thing. Try to follow these points and may be, you have more ideas to add regarding link exchange.
