Google recommends natural-type links, meaning on-topic. Examining the search results seems to support this by showing that backlinks from sites with themes like your own are worth more than links from totally unrelated sites. This makes sense in that sites on the same topic are much more of an authority so their "vote" carries a little more weight.

Many people have been saying that reciprocal links are dead. Many sites that had a mass amount of general backlinks did in fact fall in their ranking within Google. In reality it was because the links were unrelated so their value they contributed to the site when down.

The general rule of thumb to decide how valuable a link to your site is, is to pretend you are a visitor on the site linking to you. If you were interested in the topic, is it a link you would follow? The more likely ( from a topic standpoint ) , the more the backlink is worth. Whether or not you have a link back to that site irrelevant.

Topics like backlinks and Google's opinion is actually pretty easy to solve, or at least helps predict what they are really looking for. Google is looking to sort out the web as if their presence did not exist. That is, they prefer no optimization for google. What this means in backlinking shows in the Jagger update: on-topic backlinks and reciprocal link trading are natural and would happen and should happen. Backlinks between totally unrelated sites, while still having a value, are not valued as strongly as sites that would be an authority on that topic.

One thing that should be noted about building backlinks is it should appear natural. Paying a monthly fee and within seconds having 5,000 backlinks to your site is blatantly unnatural and stands out like a sore thumb to Google. If both you and a webmaster mutually agree to exchange links, then you'll be safe.

Reciprocal links are most definitely not dead. Backlinks, whether one-way or reciprocal, are still valued by Google, and quality/authoritative links are valued even more. Quite simply, even Google recommends beneficial links, and without them your popularity will take much longer to rise.