Do Reciprocal Links Hurt You?

Most SEO specialists out there try to get as many of those coveted reciprocal links which are supposed to rank you at the top of Google “in no time”. In doing so, they nearly forget how overdoing such linking campaigns can be harmful. Do you think there is such a thing as “overdoing-reciprocal linking can harm you” phenomenon?

Yes, there is. For example, if you have a new website, which had done nothing except reciprocal linking with websites in the same niche, you stand a good chance of triggering spam filters in Google. What are the chances of a new website having ALL their links built on a reciprocal basis? If you think the chances are low, you are right.

Reciprocal links used to help in the past, when the Google search mechanisms were not that sophisticated. They do not carry a lot of weight now. Why? Because reciprocal linking on a large scale is easily seen by search engines, which can then go ahead and penalize your website. It really is getting difficult to deceive Google these days.

Do reciprocal linking partners link to each other on merit? Not at all! They link out to each other with the sole objective to increase their link popularity and nothing else! Google knows this already and is cracking down on such practices, and I strictly believe that if you overdo your reciprocal linking campaigns, you can easily get penalized.

Google knows this so if you think an SEO company which is only building reciprocal links for you is helping you out, think again. Most SEO companies only try to do reciprocal linking because it costs them next to nothing, and all they have to do is send out an email to another webmaster to ask for the link.

In the end, if you want to build reciprocal links, make sure they do not constitute a bid percentage of your link profile. Try to diversify where you get your incoming links from. If you are relying on only one or 2 different methods to rank high online, you will be solely disappointed!