The Death of Reciprocal Linking (and Other Internet Marketing Casualties)

I knew this day was coming. And now, SiteProNews has officially announced the death of reciprocal linking. In his article, Reciprocal Linking is Dead!, Mike Banks Valentine recounts his recent experience with a scammer who wrote to him wanting to "swap links" (a common practice to build link popularity, a key factor in search engine placement). Well, when Mike went to check out his site, it turns out the site was just a forwarding page to an affiliate program page. From there, Mike goes on to show how this abuse will inevitably devalue reciprocal linking, as has happened with Free-For-All links pages, free classifieds, and now even e-mail.

So what does he suggest instead? What still works? Content, content, content. The best approach is Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles.

Of course, if you're looking for a good place to publish articles on your topic, many About.com Guides do accept guest articles, and the Guide Sites are usually among the top-ranked sites on their topic. Check with your topic Guide for more information.

Reciprocal Linking is Dead!
Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles