Thrudigital

Without any pointless discussion of how useless reciprocal links are, I’ll move to the crux of this article’s idea: if all top-ranked websites, grouped by niches (web design, pet care, travel, economy news, and so on), established reciprocal links between each other, they would create an unbreakable net of top-ranked websites. I don’t mean an automatic “reciprocal links directory”, but quality human-edited web pages with links to other related websites. Let me explain with this example:

Websites A, B, C, D, E and F are ranked in the top 6 for some imaginary phrase. The problem is that none of these websites link to each other, thus their relevance is based upon other factors. So, for a search engine, there is no direct connection between these websites. Each depends on links from other sources (although often one such source may link to websites A, B, and C and eventually to D, E, and F as well), however they (websites A-F) operate in the same field and offer similar services. Now picture a crappy website (say a website X) which bought a lot of links with targeted anchor texts. Sooner or later this website can break the A-F circle and can even settle in first position. The A-F websites will receive fewer hits, thus will generate lower sales and falling revenue. All of these effects are connected to just one fact: competitors don’t like to link to each other.

In the past I found one webmaster from Australia (the owner of e-aquarium.com.au) and we linked related articles on our websites. The result is that my website (aqua-fish.net) receives more hits from Australia than if it had no such links. It also works in the inverse: the fact that my website is hosted in the US helps his website increase their hits from the US. We did not spam, and we did not pay each other for links: it is all natural traffic. Now imagine that I could find more such webmasters with larger websites, and that we’d exchange links. Then it would become very hard for poor websites to gain top rankings for competitive phrases.

Where two fight, third one wins.

As we do everything possible in order to move from the 4th position in Google to the 2nd or 3^rd, while our current competitors do the same thing, someone more clever shins up higher…

The reason why newly-created websites have greater potential to get top rankings than existing websites have is simple: top-ranked websites’ webmasters usually feel comfortable with what has already been achieved. They are happy to see their websites somewhere in the top 5 or 10. It’s unavoidable that one day, some new website (it may be an old website, but without previous SEO) damages their position. Every webmaster wants to see their website ranked in the top 5 or 10 for all major phrases. The desire to succeed is usually stronger in those who just started than in those who are already playing, and whose rankings have been stable for 2-3 years. It’s like a disease: Everything is fine until you get sick. Then nothing is more important than health..

So don’t dawdle: ask your top competitors to exchange links. Create reciprocal links in order to prevent someone else breaking into your positions.

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