Why Link Exchanges are Broken

The original idea of exchanging links with another webmaster, is to benefit from it through the search engines. Back when search engines weren’t as sophicated and used out of date technology like meta tags to rank certain sites, link exchanges worked, however, with today’s ranking algorithm, it doesn’t cut it. Link exchanges once had their reign, however, now, it is looked down upon by many webmasters.

Why Link Exchanges are Broken

Although we can see a mutual benefit when exchanging links with another webmaster, is it really necessary? There is more harm to link exchanges than good in both Google’s eyes and the viewers’. Although it isn’t PROHIBITED to exchange links, once a trend begins, that is when Google starts to get suspicious. There are many clever schemes out there just to manipulate the search engines, and search engines like Google’s number one priority is to track those activities. So, in a sense, you don’t want your site to be mistakenly accused to be a link farm so it is also best to avoid suspicious activities that might create awareness.

Harms of Link Exchanges

• You are entitled to who you link to with a dofollow tag. So if some webmaster you had link exchanged with, had a shift in “trust” with Google, you may be in harms way for linking to a penalized source.
• They look nasty once they grow in numbers. If you plan on doing link exchanges, keep it to a bare minimum.
• You sacrifice link juice or “Page Rank.”
• They have little to no noticeable effect in terms of search engine rankings.
• Increases a site’s # of outbound links.
• Possibility to be tangled up with some issues about Google.
• It takes maintenance once a while when they grow in numbers.

Benefits of Link Exchanges

The only benefit that I would see fit for link exchanges at this moment of time, is to be used for exposure, other than that, I see no reason why a link should be dofollow unless it is to cite a resource. In my eyes, link exchanges once had their wealth of power but now, they serve about no purpose other than to gain more exposure. What are your views on link exchanges? Are they really broken in your eyes?