Reciprocal link building (exchanging links between websites to gain more authority in search engine listings) used to be one of the most powerful SEO techniques back in the day. A lot has changed in search engine algorithms since then, but backlinks are still an important ranking factor. With Google claiming they don’t condone reciprocal link building when it represents an attempt to game search results, many SEOs have given up on link exchange and turned to newly emerged SEO techniques such as social marketing and blog comments.

If you visit almost any SEO related forum, you will see that whenever there is a question about reciprocal link building, the ‘gurus’ will always reply that it is ‘yesterday and ineffective’. There will always be someone cheap with ‘I’ve never exchanged a single link’ and there will always be at least a couple of ‘experts’ who will mention that Google frowns on link exchange and that it can hurt your rankings. Someone will go even more extreme and tell you that if you exchange links, they will get their website banned. But what is it really like? Is reciprocal link building outdated or do SEOs just want you to think so?

First of all, many SEOs misinterpret Google’s statement on reciprocal linking as “Google frowns.” And somehow it doesn’t occur to them that reciprocal links can and do occur naturally. Linking from one website to another is perceived by search engines as a kind of ‘vote’ as an authority on a particular topic. And if two websites with useful and relevant information link to each other (which is very often the case) that in no way makes the sites or their content any less relevant and authoritative. Unlike many SEO experts, Google understands that and does not devalue natural reciprocal links in any way.

Different tests show that reciprocal link building still works. Plus, it can be more effective than most of the “cutting edge” SEO tricks out there. In one such test, two websites were launched simultaneously. The first website was optimized using ‘old school’ SEO techniques such as keyword optimization, reciprocal linking with relevant websites, etc. The other was modern optimized with only naturally occurring keywords in the content and links created exclusively through social media and press releases. As a result, the first website managed to rank high on Google and a decent amount of traffic in several months, while the second website struggled to rank in the top 100 results without any search engine traffic.

What this tells us is that if you execute reciprocal link building wisely, with the right approach, and using the right SEO tools, you can achieve a lot with this proven SEO method.