{"id":15316,"date":"2022-09-05T11:53:41","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T11:53:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/link-building-guide\/link-building-reciprocal-links\/"},"modified":"2022-09-05T11:53:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T11:53:41","slug":"reciprocal-links-do-they-help-or-hurt-your-seo-via-sejournal-juliaemccoy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketingnewsbox.com\/?p=15316","title":{"rendered":"Reciprocal Links: Do They Help Or Hurt Your SEO? via @sejournal, @JuliaEMcCoy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early in the 2000s, reciprocal link building was a popular method to increase your search traffic and boost your backlink profile.<\/p>\n

Also referred to as \u201ctraded\u201d or \u201cexchanged\u201d links, reciprocal links were something of an SEO hack \u2013 even though they were technically against Google\u2019s guidelines.<\/p>\n

These days, Google<\/a> still says \u201cno\u201d to reciprocal links<\/a> (they call it a \u201clink scheme\u201d).<\/p>\n

But the web today is still full of them.<\/p>\n

What gives?<\/p>\n

The way reciprocal links appear on sites \u2013 and the way they occur \u2013 is different from 20 years ago.<\/p>\n

Today, reciprocal links are a natural byproduct<\/a> of owning a website.<\/p>\n

It happens when you develop relationships with other sites through authentic outreach, not to mention when you link to sources without any expectation of reciprocation, but they discover your link and, in fact, organically reciprocate.<\/p>\n

Further, an insightful link-building study<\/a> done by Ahrefs shows how common reciprocal links still are on the web.<\/p>\n

This graph shows that only 26.4% of the authority domains used in the study are not<\/strong> using reciprocal links:<\/p>\n

\"ThisScreenshot from Ahrefs, August 2022<\/em><\/span>\"This<\/div>\n

That means 73.6% of the domains are<\/em> using them.<\/p>\n

So, sure, reciprocal links are common, but do they help or hurt your SEO?<\/p>\n

Intentions matter. Let me explain.<\/p>\n

What Are Reciprocal Links?<\/h2>\n

A link exchange occurs when an agreement is made between two brands to trade links to boost SEO and site authority by essentially saying, \u201cYou link to me, and I\u2019ll link to you.\u201d<\/p>\n

In essence, a reciprocal link is a quid pro quo or a \u201cYou scratch my back, I\u2019ll scratch yours\u201d situation.<\/p>\n

Does this sound shady?<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

Is it<\/em> shady?<\/p>\n

It could be. That all depends on how \u2013 and how often \u2013 you use reciprocal links on your site.<\/p>\n

Later in this article, we link to Ahrefs. The link sets us both up for a helpful, naturally occurring reciprocal link situation. Whether Ahrefs chooses to reciprocate by linking back to this article is entirely up to them.<\/p>\n

If they do, that\u2019s exactly how a natural reciprocal link is born.<\/p>\n

Now, let\u2019s take a look at the other end of the spectrum.<\/p>\n

You might get emails or come across websites with shady link exchange offers. They\u2019re usually pretty easy to spot:<\/p>\n