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Why Link Exchanges Don’t Work

wendigo_falls

Ahhh, link exchanges – the proverbial “You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”

Over the years, I have received countless requests for link exchanges and I’ve turned down almost every single one. Is it because I’m a bad guy? Is it because I’m mean?

Maybe.

Or maybe it’s because link exchanges don’t really work. Here’s why.

A link exchange request e-mail typically goes like this:

Hey [name optionally not included],

[The butter up: I'm a fan of your work / I really like what you do / your site is great. (No specifics mentioned.)]

[The request:  Can you add a link back to my site?]

What’s wrong with this scenario?

First and foremost, there is little to no benefit to the larger site receiving the link exchange request. The benefit is clearly one sided, in favor of the link exchange requestor. Think about it. What does the larger site receiving the link request really stand to gain from the exchange? Unless you can offer the other site something valuable in return (money, a guest blog post, or product / service), there is NO incentive for the larger site to honor the exchange. A better course of action in this scenario would be to simply advertise or sponsor the site in some monetary fashion.

Second: A link exchange serves as an implied endorsement. Whether the requestor sees this or not, it’s true. By linking to any site in a link exchange, there is an assumption that the content on both sites is endorsed by both parties. I can certainly say that this is where I feel most uncomfortable. I don’t want to feel obliged to link to ANY site, when my readers have put trust and faith in my work. An endorsement from me is a big deal, and I don’t take it lightly, because my neck on the line.

A much better approach to receiving a link exchange would be to offer a guest-blog post relating to the topics that are discussed on the blog. To do this, it’s important to thoroughly research and KNOW the audience for the site you are approaching. Become intimately familiar with the blog’s contents and writing style. pcweenies.com is focused on geek topics like tech product reviews, cartooning tips and tricks, and of course, the tech comics I make. I’m always looking out for interesting, well written content to feature on the blog.

By providing a guest blog post, you are offering something in exchange – and a link exchange is usually the byproduct. Both parties get something they want. I get new content for my site and the link exchange requestor gets a link back to their site.

That being said, if an article is poorly researched or written, or otherwise irrelevant to my audience, I am under no obligation to publish it on my site.

How do you feel about link exchanges? How do you handle these requests? Please share your thoughts and tips in the comments. And if you’re interested in writing something for pcweenies.com, please hit me up with your pitch.

-Krishna

P.S. Providing some INCREDIBLE fan art is another way to receive a link back to your site. But it must be incredible.

These beautiful and intelligent people wrote

  • Michael KinyonReply
    May 10, 2014 at 10:18 am

    I think there’s another reason they don’t work: this isn’t the early 2000’s anymore. When is the last time you honestly read such links on someone’s website? Even for those who do link exchanges, do they really have any measurable effect on traffic nowadays?

    • Krishna M. SadasivamReply
      May 10, 2014 at 10:19 am

      Spot on, Michael. The results from a link exchange, in the normal sense, is usually nil.

    • cannedBeetsReply
      May 10, 2014 at 11:56 am

      Links unused by people can still affect (often improve) position in search engine results. But the value probably isn’t enough to justify hand-crafting link requests.

      I almost always ignore link exchange requests. Messages saying “adding a link to my page x from your page y would improve your site because …” generally get investigated eventually.

      • Krishna M. SadasivamReply
        May 10, 2014 at 11:58 am

        Excellent points, cannedBeets.

      • Michael KinyonReply
        May 10, 2014 at 12:00 pm

        I had forgotten the search engine side of it, but you’re right, there’s a law of diminishing returns. The return for spending much time on link exchanges can’t be worth it, when merely finding time for content-generation (in Krishna’s case, making the comic) is the hard part.

  • Tom Dell'AringaReply
    May 10, 2014 at 9:58 pm

    I’m not a fan of asking for links back in general. The only people worth asking are people who are much more popular than you, and generally those people need nothing from you. There is no equality of exchange.

    But, I disagree that comic links on sites have no purpose anymore, or don’t do much good. I’d say the majority of people still seem to do it. I myself still will click a link in a list here or there if I don’t know what it is and it sounds interesting.

    I think what you want to do is build relationships with other artists. And then if said artists want to freely link back to you, that may help you. But it very much depends on WHO they are.

    For Marooned, I am friends with two other artists who have fairly popular comics – one of them very popular. I didn’t ask them to include me, but they did anyway. Those two sites sent me *thousands* of readers. They were consistently in my top 10 referrers – the one often top 5 or higher. The one site, over the course of the comic sent me over 20,000 sessions.

    I consider that organic networking, and I consider it worthwhile. I can probably find around 10 or so sites like that in my referral list that send Marooned steady traffic. Now as I said, I didn’t go asking for the links, but getting them, they became quite valuable in growing my readership.

    So what I am saying is that it is HOW you get them. It isn’t a link exchange per se (although in some cases, I added a link back), it’s rather two artists who dig each other’s work linking to each other. But they key is that you have to make quality work, and you need quality sites linking back to you.

    Hope I’m making sense. Yes thinks are different than they were in say 2002. But links back to your site are still quite valuable depending on the source.

    • Krishna M. SadasivamReply
      May 10, 2014 at 10:03 pm

      You nailed it, Tom! Link exchanges can be valuable networking tools. I don’t want to dismiss them outright. If I dig an artist, I’ll definitely link back to his / her work – without any expectation in return. I think link exchanges that form out of relationships / connections / networking are totally beneficial methods for driving traffic.

  • BeckiReply
    May 12, 2014 at 7:18 pm

    Your post hits home! As the person in charge of my library’s website, I get a LOT of emails from people wanting their websites added to our Subject Guide. Most requests are deleted, because the sites are awful or extremely commercial, neither of which I will link to on our Subject Guide (the point of the guide is authoritative, free content for our library patrons). I actually got an argument back from one requester, asking why I wouldn’t link to her site. I pointed out the poor grammar, the misspellings, and the personal opinions present in discussions on medical topics (a big no-no). She still argued with me that there was nothing wrong with her site. Oh well, another email message deleted. Then there are those who send me email messages every week, asking if I’ve had a chance to check out their site yet. They get deleted, too.

  • t3rminusReply
    May 13, 2014 at 2:37 pm

    Hey,

    I’m a fan of your work / I really like what you do / your site is great. (No specifics mentioned.)

    Can I leave a comment on your site?

    Sincerely,

    t3rminus

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