Link Popularity and Link Exchange are two different terms but totally interrelated to each other. Link Popularity of a web site means the total number of web sites linking to it. It is a measure that search engines use to determine how popular and relevant a particular site is. Link popularity plays an important role in the visibility of your Web site and driving a fair amount of site traffic to your site. Whereas Link Exchange is a part of Link Popularity and this article mainly focuses on this part of Link Popularity building process.
Link exchange is basically a process of swapping the links between two websites. It involves exchanging text links or banner links between websites directly or indirectly. You can do it either directly contacting webmasters of other websites (either popular one with higher PR Rank or sites relevant to yours) or indirectly by participating on any of available Link Exchange sites.
Generally Link Exchange is done to improve traffic through numerous inbound links so that some (or most) of the visitors who visits the site with whom you have exchanged links come to visit yours. It is normally a free process unless you decide to use a paid link exchange programs. By linking to relevant sites, you stand better chances at obtaining targeted traffic. Link Exchange also helps in improving your positions in the Search Engine Result Pages.
Though, the link exchanging is very popular among webmasters these days, there is a bad practice of linking whatever sites agree to trade links just to increase quantity of inbound links. Because of this kind of practice in existence, experts say that these days search engines gives lower emphasis to two way links. Putting links in places that are not relevant to your content may not be effective. Link exchanges between relevant sites is important. Linking your website(s) with irrelevant websites can negatively affect your site's placement in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs).
Link Exchange Methods
There are basically two methods of Link Exchange1. Joining Link Exchange Programs and
2. Contacting Webmasters of Other Websites
Joining Link Exchange Programs
There are sites which facilitates links to the webmasters who are interested in link exchange. You can join such sites which connect you with other member webmasters. This type of link exchange is indirect because you don't have to contact webmasters of the sites directly with whom you want to exchange links. This method is an easy and fast way to develop lots of links to your website but is not quite effective in comparison to another method. Your task is quite simple. Only thing you have to do in this type of link exchange process is search for the prospective partner in the category of your interest and offer to exchange links or wait for the offers others make to you.It is better to join Link Exchange Programs which categorizes member sites. In such programs you can find sites similar to yours and hence enhance the quality link exchange. The more the categories are specific, the better. Almost all of the Link Exchange sites offer both paid and free programs. You don't have to pay on free link exchange programs but you are required to manually add each website on your own. The major benefit of free link exchange program is the complete control you possess over links offers which you can reject or accept at your will. But it takes some time to complete the exchange process. Whereas in paid link exchange program is easier and usually require software to be placed on the website to assist with the link exchange process.
The main drawback of this type of link exchange is that you don't know when the link partner with whom you have traded links remove yours while link pointing to their site is still intact in your site. Better Link Exchange sites periodically verify that the links that are exchanged between webmasters are honestly maintained. Such programs notify the webmaster whose partner has removed his link so that he/she may contact the concerned webmaster requesting for rethinking of link exchange or simply remove his/her link.
Some Link Exchange Sites
Backlinks
Build Reciprocal Links
Gotlinks
Link Exchange
Link2me
Link Market
Link Vault
Links Exchanged
Links4trade
Link Survey
LRSxpress
Links To You
Receive Links
