Links exchanges tricks

[Jack Norton]

Some days ago I decided to spend a morning to check if all the sites I did links exchanges in the past had kept their recip. link.
I was astonished to see that 7 out of 10 had removed link to my site! :eek:
So I wonder, what you do? you ignore this, giving free one-way links to those sites, or periodically do a check like I did?
I'm thinking to remove links exchange completely from my site since doesn't seems really worth it...

[Chris Evans]

I'm still linking to you Jack. :)

Though this is why I've kept my link page very small. It keeps the PR high on that page and it's easier to maintain.

But yeah overall I'm not big on link exchanges either. It's great for starting out, but after awhile it seems to provide very little benefits. The visitors from those link exchanges account for about .003% of my overall traffic. Also, some of the sites are either dead or severely inactive. Others have their link page buried so deep in their site, it's no wonder I hardly see traffic from it (I'm looking at you Jack and Gabriel! :D )

Right now I basically just have a link page to appease the SE Gods. But it seems everyday link pages are becoming less and less relevant for their ranking algos. Maybe triangular link exchanges have some better results, but that's only if you can find other decent sized sites willing to swap links.

I'm almost in the same position as you Jack. I'm thinking about just putting outbound links, which I think are interesting or just dump the link page entirely (in which case, I'll contact all the people I did link exchanges with). But it definitely seems like a waste of real estate once you reach a certain size.

I can just spend a hour e-mailing a few small blogs about my web game and receive 5-10x the amount of traffic than I would from my current link exchanges. And those would be free inbound links...

[svero]

I checked a bunch just for fun.. found a few unliked but most were still traded. Im pretty picky about who I exchange with these days though. Mostly just other small devs. I almost universally ignore link trade requests from strangers unless I know of them from their game.

[Jack Norton]

For the records, I found that the non-linking site were all "general links" pages, all devs in this forums did mantain my link (yes Chris I know you still link to me) :D
Indeed I already removed my "exchange link with us" text, and I'll clean up my link page, leaving only the ones of other fellow developers or friends. I agree too that links exchanges are almost useless despite what other might say.

[arcadetown]

Sounds like an abnormally high % of flakes. Perhaps they checked stats and didn't see referral #s so quietly dropped link? That's typical reason.

I use links as traffic driver primarily and seo far secondary. Still don't get why devs here don't link each other up like a storm. My theory is toss it out there and let the great bit bucket provide.

(edit) Yes good idea to prune links every couple months and remove flakes or non-performers but I'll heartily disagree about them being almost useless.

[Jack Norton]

Don't know their reason, but again: they were NOT other developers here, they were just those "general" links exchange.
Another example, 4 days ago I got an email requesting links exchange. I did it and emailed back. Today I get another email with a slight different name (first time was like J. Yung and 2nd was J. Yang, this is just an example with fake names) asking the SAME THING WITH SAME DOMAIN.
Of course I checked their domain today and MY LINK was NOT UP.
I guess those are like automatic spam emails.
So for now I'll just do links exchanges with person I know and that I can insult personally with PM, email or chat if they dare to remove my links :D

[jankoM]

If you have small trafic webiste every visitor counts. I noticed I get some visitors from link exchange with Funpause, midoritech and reflected games (which has closed now). You won't see many links on bkg because I traded in links from my other sites so hopefully google doesn't see mutual linking and we both gain. (BTW I am just relocationg server of otroski.net this week so the page doesn't work - for those who I have linked from there - I haven't deleted links to you)

[Jack Norton]

Sounds like an abnormally high % of flakes. Perhaps they checked stats and didn't see referral #s so quietly dropped link? That's typical reason.

Just wanted to add, if I do a links exchange, usually I don't drop the other site links without even sending them a notify email...(even if they give me few visitors)

[Chris Evans]

Brian, I know we don't see eye to eye on this issue, but looking at your link page I think I know why we're getting different results than you.

You're primarily link exchanging with Flash game sites, which are purely traffic driven. Sites like Newgrounds, ArcadePod, and I Am Bored are absolute traffic monsters. A link exchange with them could pull in some noticeable traffic. Whereas most of us small devs have FAR less traffic than many of those Flash gaming sites. They offer hundreds of free games and update often. Most of us only have a few games available with sporadic sites updates. Also a lot of the traffic on dev sites goes directly to the game download and many visitors never actually see the rest of the site. So when it comes to link exchanges there's just not a whole lot of traffic to spread around.

Believe me, I initially had a lot more links on the page from other developers. But each link was averaging .5 visitors a day. Some brought in 1-2 visitors a day, others wouldn't bring anything in for several days. The minute traffic wasn't worth maintaining all those links, so I just trimmed it down to the devs I knew well.

So I still stand by what I've been saying. Link exchanges are great for taking from 0 to 100 visitors since it helps you to get noticed by search engines and every little bit counts in the beginning. But they seem pretty ineffective for Indie dev sites, once you already have a decent flow of traffic. I'm mostly talking link pages. I don't have much experience with that link triangulation trickery.

[Escapee]

I have done hundred of link exchanges by using the free service of
linkmetro.com
linkmarket.net
link2me.com

I'm still not quite if it helps my PR on google but maybe a little on Yahoo and MSN .

[Olivier]

I just started setting up my new "partners" page some days ago. I put only interesting links there, interesting for my visitors and maybe other devs. I'll never use any sort of exchange service. But the page is rather difficult to find from the main pages. Might change that.

As my trades are recent, all the devs I'm linking to are linking back.. for the moment. Except a few ones who didn't even reply.:mad:

Honestly, like many others, I did that mainly for those web crawlers.
I get a few visitors from my partners but nothing noticiable. This is surely reciprocal too, like the links.:)

[arcadetown]

Brian, I know we don't see eye to eye on this issue, but looking at your link page I think I know why we're getting different results than you.
Note: Everyone please don't hit us up for links as we're looking for different link partner types.

Just saying link similar small guy developers like you. Give a little get a little plus both will be happy long term so less flakes. Do 50 of those and viola it's not a worthless exercise anymore. And yes if have a bad performing link partner, push it to links page or even prune it.

You can spot the jokers/flakes from a mile away. Blow off anything that remotely looks like a joker and definitely NEVER use a links service. Evaluate your potential link partners. What is their Alexa, what traffic type (unrelated traffic provides worthless CR), link positioning (home page, links page, top of list, etc), how many links (a lot of links expect few clicks on yours), check GPR (avoid < PR3), etc.

Evaluating Jack's site I wouldn't expect much as odd link positioning yields low CTR and his Alexa is sub 100k. Actually I wouldn't offer site wide links, just a clearly identified "Our Friends" home page links area and links page accessible from site wide bottom nav bar. Give a home for home or much higher traffic links page, links page for links page, etc. Look at Retro64.com for a decent example (ArcadeTown's not a good example anymore).

My other theory is if users go to links they're looking to go elsewhere so send em to a friend from where you'll get something back. If they go to google or non-friend you've lost. Karma.

[Tom Gilleland]

Im pretty picky about who I exchange with these days though. Mostly just other small devs.

Yea, you didn't even reply to my email! :(

So I'm going to give you a second chance to redeem yourself and support another small developer.
(Sales technique #273 - The guilt-ridden close.) ;)

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[Cartman]

I've been trying to get link exchanges, but halted it due to the fact most people don't want to link with you until you have a game for sale. I understand completely, but I like to get marketing going before the game is complete.

With that said, Twilight was kind enough to exchange links and I'm happy to report that 17% of my hits come from their link page.

[Olivier]

With that said, Twilight was kind enough to exchange links and I'm happy to report that 17% of my hits come from their link page.
Let's hope svero won't get spammed by requests about link exchanges! :D

[DFG]

You can get automated tools that will keep checking your link partners if they have your link up.

Also watch out for those linking to you with cgi.? in their URLs or linking through another kind of script (like PHP), blocking robots on page or from a robots.txt file, or using other methods to block spidering of your links. There are a few "traffic monsters" out there that are really gaming their link partners.