Maybe this is the time to make some rants and also an advice of all webmasters doing link exchanges. Link exchanges are good in terms of gaining inbound link to your site for search engine visibility. But on the other hand of the globe, that is not always the case. There are reasons why I have created this post, because I myself have done this few times but then turned down some sites especially who does not keep their word on link exchange code.

Let’s site some examples or scenarios here on why it doesn’t always work the way you want it.

1.  You are only benefited on a short term. Why, your link is being removed on their site after doing the link exchange. After few days or weeks, your site where you are supposed to get link into was removed.

2. In relation to item number 1, your link becomes no follow after few days or weeks. Avoiding that google PR juice.

3. If it pass for few weeks or months of exchanging links, check for few more months and it will be gone.

4. The domain you just exchange expired.

5. The site your just exchanged has been suspended or similar cases like parked.

6. Sites you have exchanged with becomes a redirect. Meaning having new url that is not directly pointing to your sites either using javascript or other scripts.

7. The domain is banned from search engine.

Now with the scenario above, I just would like to give you some advice before doing link exchanges. Here are few of them.

1. Create a simple database or excel sheet where your record of link exchanges. Simple word, have a record of the exchanges. What is your site, where is your site located, what is their site, and where is it located, duration of exchange or terms of exchange, the date when the exchange happen and where it happened, like forum post etc.

2. Check whois information of the domain, indexed pages (if it is site wide), pagerank if it is part of the exchange. In this way you will know if the domain you are exchanging with is not banned by search engines or the site itself is not allowing search engine to index them.

3. In view on the above, please be clear about the exchange, are you exchanging on traffic or on pagerank? It does mean that you don’t care about the PR of the site as long as it has tons of traffic. By the way, Traffic pays better than PR (though you can react to me on this). This also mean, that if the exchange is in terms of traffic, you can ignore even if it is no-follow or redirect.

4. Check your site frequently or on schedule base on your recorded data of exchange at item 1.

5.  Check not just your site is there but also check if it turns down to no follow or redirect.

6. If you are changing your site or doing renovation, be sure to contact the person whom you exchange link with. In this case, he or she will not assume that you are a link scammer.

7. If you found your site, that is not on their site, email the person that you are about to remove also their link on their site in reference to your exchange data recorded on item 1.

These are just simple advice but in anyway can help you, your site and the person you are exchanging to have a common understanding on the exchange. Why I write this because this had happened to me when I check the links on my sites. Link exchange is a mutual process or can be beneficial if both parties are abiding the rules, was it?