Talk about controversy. Sheesh! There is more chatter around about reciprocal linking and linking in general than you can shake a hand full of sticks at.

It all started with the engines, mainly Google, placing importance on a link from some site somewhere else to your site. They see this inbound link as a vote from that other site as to your site being good. Now if that other site happens to have a high PageRank ... well, you are golden! Getting these inbound links is easy if you are a big shot. For instance, how many sites link to Google? Yahoo? Netscape? Lots and lots and none of these sites ever went out searching for anyone to link to them. People just do. This very fact speaks volumes about the importance of these sites.

So if you want to get inbound links to your site, and you should, you will probably need to approach other webmasters and request to exchange links. Start off with a search on your favorite engine for "add url" +keyword. The add url is in quotes so you get that exact phrase. Your keyword is whatever your site is about, e.g., "add url" +widgets. The only results returned will be web pages that have the phrase add url in them plus your keyword. Many of these pages will turn up to be reciprocal link pages where the site is allowing you to add a link to their links page.

This method works OK and gets you relevant links, because you are searching for one of your own keywords. Relevance in linking is important. The more sites linking to you that contain keywords that are relevant to your theme on your site the better you will be. These links show "relevance" between the two sites, and shows the reason for linking is that you are relevant. Obviously you should not link to your direct competition, but to those sites that are about the same theme, or relevantly close, but are not selling the same product or service as you.

Go ahead and add your URL and information to their page. You'll probably be requested to add their URL, title and information to your website before they will link back to you. So go ahead and add them to your site and then fill out their form. Sometimes they will add you immediately, you have added them, and the reciprocal link is a done deal. Voila! Piece of cake.

Other times they will not be so punctual. Expect a large number of sites to link back to you in a few weeks to a few months. I've received emails saying they would add my link to their page at the next update, and naming a date that is three months away. These people need to get on the ball. This is a good place to mention that the engines, Google in particular, like fresh content and fresh websites. The more you update your site and the pages within it, the better off you will be.

Another excellent method to find sites to link with is to Google for link:domainname.com. This will provide you with a list of all the sites that are linking to domainname.com. Run this on your competition and see who's linking to them. Ask them to link to you.

Of course, you could always just click on each link on their resources page and visit each of the URLs there.

Don't call your page "links". Generally I call the pages resources but the point I want to make is this entire process of reciprocal linking is not 100% above board. It's good to do, and you should do it, but in the beginning the reciprocal links were a real vote of the quality of your site if you had an inbound link. Nowadays we request these links and it really is a diluted link. However, they still work, still are very important, and we must do reciprocal linkings. So when you make your page don't make it plain that it's a links page and nothing more.

Don't make this page into a link farm either. It's a fine line between a good resources page, and a link farm. Try to organize the links so there is some semblance of order, like a directory would be. Keep the number of links down under 100. Many times I see these pages limited to 50 links per page. Google calls 100 links the maximum any page should have. Take that into consideration when creating your site.

Can you link to just anyone? Well, yes, but no. As you get around the net you are going to find link exchange sites. Using these sites you can get links in a myriad of categories. Relevant, and non relevant. You'll find if you request to have your link added to their database that you will be solicited for link exchanges with site bearing absolutely no relevance to your site whatsoever. Now the value of the inbound link is mostly in two places. The keywords used in the link's anchor text, and the relevance of the site to your site market. You can have a miscellaneous category on your links page, and you can link to sites that are irrelevant, but you won't be gaining valuable inbound link points simply because the sites non-relevance will bring the value of the link down. I'd rather see 25 relevant links than 125 non relevant links.

Triangular Linking
I have to mention this here too. Triangular linking is becoming more common. There is at least one link exchange site that utilizes triangular linking. When you use them and link to the site they list, they have the link back to you come from another site. The idea here is that all the links you have are not all pointing right back at you. It's done so that the engines can't examine the links on your site, compare them to the sites you link to, and realize that everyone you link out to, links back to you. I'm sure the idea arose from paranoia that Google would figure out the reciprocal linking scheme and penalize sites for it. This triangular linking requires a little more effort on the part of an engine to figure out that it is done intentionally. OK, I guess it's a good idea. I don't have a problem with it. Although you need to watch your linking with this, because you don't want a bunch of links coming in from PageRank 0 sites, or bad neighborhoods. Although, bear in mind, it is much more important who you are linking out to, rather than who is linking in to you. You really can't control who links to your site, if someone wants to, you really can't stop them. The engines realize this as well so don't worry too much if PageRank 0 sites are linking to you, just limit, or don't at all, the number of these sites you link out to. Never link out to a bad neighborhood. Casinos are considered bad neighborhoods.

One-Way Inbound Linking
By far the best inbound link. Some site, somewhere just linking to you to inform their visitors that your site exists and it should be visited. Wowie Zowie, this is huge.

But it isn't easy. Not at all. As well, you will no doubt find that for the most part you will not have sites that just link to you because they want their visitors to benefit from your information. This will probably happen if you run an information site. You'll have other sites about the subject sending their people your way to learn more. But if you are selling gifts, stereos, or whatever, it's highly unlikely that many sites will send traffic your way just for the heck of it. There must be some reason.

Today, the reciprocal linking scenario is fading, and in it's place is the one-way inbound link. Where can we get these links? Well, it isn't easy. Visiting sites and requesting a link is one way, but few webmasters out there are going to link to your site without receiving something in return. Blogs, forums and directories seem to be the places where we can accomplish this. We can leave a comment on a blog or get into a conversation, always leaving a link back to our site. Often we will have to register with the blog using a keyword for our name. Check out how the blog works before signing up so you know whether to use a keyword when signing up. This type of blog will provide a link back to the username of the person posting. Consequently you would register with them as My Keyword Phrase rather than Herman.

When you do these links try and do better than a three word comment or one sentence. Get involved so that when someone comes along and reads your comment, it sounds official or that you actually care somewhat. I have seen numerous, and had my own people, leave two word or three word comments like "are you kidding???!!!???" as the comment in order to get the link. Get more involved. Hey, you'll sound official and perhaps even drive some traffic to your site! Be an authority.