Reciprocal Links Fever :evil:

This thing of the reciprocal links is starting to annoy me…

So every one wants links, they say “I only give you a link if you give me a link in return…”

That is acceptable I do it my self. What is not acceptable is a directory service asking you to link in return.

So if I want to promote my car home page in several directories related with automotive, I will have not only my well structured car page with some relevant links related to cars, but I will also be forced to have a directory of directories.

Imagine Dmoz asking to link in return to be listed… That is nonsense.

So please directory guys find other ways to get links and give us a useful directory service.

Regards and sorry for something

Hugo

Heh, how true. On one of my sites I can get away with a recip., but on my sports site there is absolutely NO room for s**tloads of links to 13-in-a-dozen links directories.

On the other hand: who says they should list my site?

What I would like is for directories to list my site spontaneously (without asking for a recip. of course)... But I can't blame them if they don't. Good thing there are thousands of dmoz clones though. That comes close.

Hmm - that reminds me, stoner3221... There's a major free dir with great response time I haven't submitted my newer site to yet

I can understand the dirs asking for reciprocal links back to their directory. The requests that shocked me were the ones that actually asked for a link to a totally different site

That's not shocking, that's modern.

3-ways are very hot this season (erm - I'm talking about 3-way linking here)

You must mean ODP "LOL"

Well - I haven't done that one either... if you translate "great" to "usually enormous" then it would actually make sense.

Hehe - of course I meant great in a positive way...

Why it should not be acceptable? Almost nobody does something for nothing and webmasters "pay" directories listings with links.

Except for ODP, of course, but ODP is a different matter because there is no way to actually ask for a link nor ODP has a listing service for webmasters.

If I had a car related site for example and wanted to get into a car related directory, why would I want to put a link back to a site related to fishing?

Some dirs (for example randfish') have more than one triangular link (back) to choose from. But if none of them fit you, you can always bail out - or ask to link back directly. No one is FORCED to link to anyone

I don't think it matters anyway if you link back (i.e. recip.) to some directory - or if you link to the occasional unrelated site. At least not for SEO. You can always put "unrelated" links on your "friendly webmasters' sites" links page

I was thinking about building a directory once, but never did. The concept I thought of was this:
Link for free: Visible only in subcategory.
Reprocial or 3-way: Visible in category and subcategory.
Pay: Frontpage, category and subcategory.

I really never thought of how the frontpage concept should work since not everybody willing to pay can be listed there. Well, never did it, won't do it, and don't know if it's a good idea.