Hi Andrew,

What are your thoughts on the 2 way link building strategy? (link exchange)

I have been doing this for a while now without significant results and to be honest – it takes a lot of time! Response rates from other website owners are very poor too.

I was just thinking – maybe I’m wasting my time with this search engine optimization technique?

Your help is highly appreciated!

Thanks,
Sebastian, UK

Hi Sebastian,

Thanks for your question.

Search Engine Optimization doesn’t end nor start with 2 way link building, you have got that part totally wrong.

YES, you want those links pointing back to your site BUT 2 way link building (link exchange) is a very out-dated, un-efficient way of doing this. Google can easily see 2-way links and devalues them – so it’s a pointless, time consuming link building strategy.

Remember, why Google values links so much in first place? They meant to be working as “marks” website owners give to other websites. Well, 2 way links doesn’t really comply with this idea as they’re manually created, with one goal in mind – to fool search engines.

But search engines are very sophisticated these days and they can easily spot 2-way links. I’m sure there’s some value in them but if we compare these links to quality, ONE WAY links, it’s far, far less and I’m sure your time is more valuable than that.

So I would strongly recommend you to concentrate your efforts on quality link building strategies creating one way links.

Thanks,
Andrew

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