You can not ignore backlinks as long as your business is based on a website. Every marketer is always looking for opportunities to build backlinks for their websites. Link exchange is another term that we often hear when it comes to building backlinks for a website.
Here, we will discuss a few things about backlink exchange and how one can do it without worrying about Google penalties (yes, Google is serious about these things). We will explain the topic in detail so you can also understand the difference between two websites linking to each other and backlink trading.
Before going ahead, please know that we are not promoting any illegal ways to manipulate the search results and won’t recommend you follow any unethical practices to do it. We are only sharing legal ways to improve your search visibility through fair practices.
So, let’s start by understanding the term ‘link exchange’ and how the same process can have different effects on your website.
What is a link exchange?
Backlink exchange is a process where two websites link to each other in order to increase domain ratings and traffic on their blogs. It is done by putting an external link somewhere on the website that links to the other website.
It becomes more interesting when you realize that Google and all other search engines use it as a factor to rank websites in their search results. If a website has backlinks from a high authority domain, it is more likely to rank higher in results than one that does not have any backlinks.
To prevent marketers from abusing this advantage, Google made it clear that you can not link to someone’s website just to improve their rankings. Similarly, “you link to me and I will link to you” should not be the common practice among websites.
Still, Google does not completely ban link exchange and there are some safe ways to do it.
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How to Use Link Exchange Without Any Risks
Google and other search engines are against backlink exchange when it is done for the sole purpose of manipulating the search results. That is why it is important to be careful while exchanging backlinks with someone. However, there are still ways you can exchange these backlinks without attracting a penalty from Google.
Here are a few things you should keep in mind:
- Find Only Genuine Backlinks
A website designed for the sole purpose of trading backlinks will be flooded with spammy links and it won’t do any good to your website. Instead, look for high domain rating websites and try to get a genuine backlink from them. The best part is you can exchange backlinks with these websites without any worries as they are not doing it regularly.
- Follow 3 way Link Exchange Pattern
There’s a better way to exchange links without making it seem too obvious. For this, you need to use the ABC link exchange method where 3 different websites link to each other in such a way that there’s no direct link exchange between any two websites.
For example, The first website can send a backlink to the second website and the second website can send a backlink to the third one. Similarly, the third website can give the first website a backlink and this way, there’s no direct backlink exchange between these websites.
- Do More Guest Posting
Guest posting is one of the best ways to generate backlinks. However, only a few people know that exchanging backlinks through guest posting is as effective as other methods. Writing on someone else’s website as a guest author can give you a backlink and it seems perfectly legit to the search engines.
Similarly, the other person can also write on your website as a guest author and leave a backlink in that post. It is a type of direct backlink exchange but search engines will hardly have any problem with it.
The reason is quite simple- Google believes both authors are sharing their knowledge with the combined audience.
Most Important Thing to Consider While Exchanging Links
The website’s authority is the most important thing that you should never ignore while doing a backlink exchange. If the website has a higher domain rating (you can check it using an SEO tool like Moz), it is trusted by Google and is a safe trade for a backlink.
Going for a website with the highest traffic is not always the best option. If the website has so many spammy backlinks, you will end up negatively impacting your website.
We also recommend you do your own research regarding the website. You should check the domain authority, traffic, number of backlinks, and website content before making a decision.
Why Search Engines are Concerned about Link Exchanges?
Let’s get one thing clear. Search engines have nothing about backlinks and they do not even drop the idea of two websites connected through backlinks. You can easily find two major websites linking to each other and Google is not worried about that at all.
However, when two websites link to each other just for the sake of domain rating, the search engines find it link spam. They want the bloggers to share some informative content and let the backlinks come naturally in their articles to give the audience more content on the specific topic.
That is why you can always do a backlink exchange while keeping it informative to the audience. The problem occurs when the same pattern is repeated again and again and again…
Conclusion
Link exchange is a strategy that is often used by marketers to improve the domain’s authority of a website. However, one wrong step and you can end up getting your website suppressed by Google. That is why you must consider the factors that we discussed today and make sure you have a proper strategy before trying them out.
Remember that there’s always some risk associated with link exchange and you must understand the risk-reward ratio before taking the next step. On the other hand, there are many other legal ways to generate backlinks that give you long-term benefits in SEO.
