Basically, if your website is any good, you will have other webmasters submitting requests to you asking if you will link to their website in exchange for a link back to your site from their site. That is a reciprocal link. We then have to ask ourselves if this is a good idea or not? You have control over your website thankfully, and you can make commercial decisions as to whether a link exchange benefits you. Here are some pointers to consider if a link to your site is worthy of reciprocating.

1. Does The Other Site Have Any Relevance To Your Site?

There are different schools of thought regarding how important relevance is when accepting link requests. I have seen evidence to suggest that it is not critical and that you will benefit from links from most sites. Whilst common sense suggests that a link from a site with a similar theme to yours is likely to bring in link minded visitors, probably the best advice I have had is that which suggested putting yourself in the mind of your visitors. If you feel that the link you are proposing would be of interest to your visitors, then it is probably a good link to have.

2. How Many Links Should You Have On A Page?

Before you agree to a link from a third party site, you should ask for the exact location where the link will be held, and you should take the time to examine it. The first think you should check for (apart from the fact that the site is working) is how many links there are on that page. If there are hundreds of links on a page, and assuming that the page does not carry any page rank, then you could be wasting your time. If the page carries rank then having your link on the page could be worthwhile, but to be honest, any more than around 75 links and you should probably not bother.

3. Check The Site's Page Rank On Google

Google applies a mystical formula to websites, and gives them a score called Page Rank. You can use page rank to help you assess the quality of a page. Or at least, PR gives you some idea of how Google views the site. You can see a site's PR by installing the Google toolbar. Remember that PR is a gauge of how Google sees a site. The other big search engines do work independently of PR.

4. Is A Site Better If The Links Are Categorized?

If links are organised properly, it does give you an idea of the type of people behind the site. A slapdash site may well be indicative of slapdash owners, and that might be something that you should be wary of. By the same token, try and organise your links as well. They will appear more attractive to the search engines if there is a theme to the links, as well as more attractive to prospective link partners.

What you should have now is some ideas of a link building strategy that allows you to make good decisions based on sound principles, and now you should be better placed to make those decisions.