What Is a Link Exchange?

Exchange links, also known as friendship links, reciprocal links, interchange links, etc., are simple forms of cooperation between websites with certain complementary advantages, that is, placing the logo or website name of each other's website on their own website and setting the other's website Hyperlinks make it possible for users to discover their own websites from cooperative websites and achieve the purpose of promoting each other ^[1] .

The exchange of links has the following three meanings for the website.

(1) Get more traffic.

The original meaning of exchanging links was to get more traffic. When search engines are not as developed as they are now, users often visit websites by exchanging links (friendship links) to obtain related similar websites, and then continue to generate browsing behavior.

(2) Increase the advantages of websites in search engine rankings.

As search engines become more and more important, the benefits of exchanging links gradually do not lie in how many direct visits can be brought to the website, but in that it will allow search engines to include more web pages and increase the advantages of websites in search engine rankings. Finally improve the keyword ranking of the website.

(3) Increase visitor credibility through referrals from partner websites.

This effect is also very obvious. Imagine if a website can have a CCTV network and a bottom of Sina website.

(1) Text link: Add a URL with a keyword as the title.

The text link format is: <a href='Link address'> Baidu </a>.

(2) Picture link: A picture (generally a website LOGO-88 * 32 pixels) is used as the connection target with a URL address.

The format of the image link is: <ahref = 'link address <(img src = image address> </a> ^[1]

(1) Two-line link: The other station A is linked to your A station, and your A station is also linked to the other A station. (This is the most common form in links)

(2) Cross-linking: The other station "A" links your "A station", while your "B station" connects to the other "A station". ("Station A" is not limited to one station)

(3) One-line link: linking a site unilaterally

Many websites will prepare a page for link exchange in the website, which states the requirements for the object of link exchange. Interested users can go to their favorite websites, contact their webmasters, seek exchange of friendship links, or go to forums and other places where webmasters gather to post information exchange links.

At present, the easiest way to get traffic is to use an exchange alliance. In short, it is to exchange links, that is, the traffic exchange between the website and the website. This is also one of the fastest ways to get traffic. ^[3]

(1) See if the linked website has been indexed by major search engines and how often it is updated by search engines. You can see the time of the last update in the search results. Search engines usually also perform corresponding searches on the linked sites. Update.

(2) Whether it is included in a large category directory, this kind of website traffic will easily increase.

(3) Whether most of the pages in the website are included, and the number of pages included is directly proportional to the website traffic value.

(4) Whether you have exchanged links with many similar websites or with many websites, during the exchange, you can check the number of links of the other party, especially high-quality links.

(5) What is the quality of the website? This is a question of whether the website can exist for a long time.

(6) Whether it is a similar website, because the ranking algorithm, the higher the score of your website ranking vote for similar websites.

(7) Attempting to submit to a large catalog, this way not only can get high-quality backlinks without paying any price. ^[1]

The stability of an exchange link is an important criterion for judging whether an exchange link is excellent, and it is also a criterion that can be easily overlooked. For exchange links, because of the revision of the website and the change of the page layout, the link may be lost. Sometimes, some webmasters who specially obtained the exchange links by deception will secretly delete some exchange links.

Regardless of whether the exchange link is viewed from the perspective of the user or the search engine, the exchange link is expected to have better stability, that is, the longer the link exists, the better.

Many new search engine optimization novices, when they exchange links, they always exchange in batches, and then cancel them in batches in a very short period of time. This less stable exchange link has a small promotion effect on search engine optimization. Instead, it may be punished by search engines as a link transaction. ^[4]

(1) Logo links are mainly static pictures.

(2) Return to the website of the friendly link partner.

(3) The number of website links should be appropriate.

(4) Linked website content should be relevant or complementary. ^[3]

Increase traffic

The meaning of the original existence of the exchange link is the transfer of traffic, that is, increasing the traffic of the link target. When search engines are not as developed as they are now, Internet users often visit websites to exchange related links (friendship links) to obtain related similar websites, and continue to generate browsing behavior.

2. Add external links

As search engines become more and more important, the benefits of exchanging links gradually do not lie in how many direct visits can be brought to the website, but in that it will allow search engines to include more pages, increase the weight of the website, and ultimately increase the keywords of the website. Rank and get more traffic.

3. Improve keyword ranking

In fact, there are overlaps between this and the role of adding external links. The reason why they are listed separately is that in the keyword ranking algorithms of major search engines, anchor text in external links is often used as an important basis for judging the main content of the website one.

When exchanging links, it is generally recommended to use the main keyword as the link text, in order to improve the ranking of this keyword. ^[4]