Link Exchanges

[StephenT]

What do you think about link exchanges. By this I mean that I get offers to exchange links with this web site and that. The biggest negative I can see is that soon, my website sidebar will be full of links to other people's site. I know this would give me some juice from these sites, but is it a good idea?

[angienewton]

Steve,
I don't like link exchanges and will not accept them. However I do have a special page on my blog where I have added some of my favorite healthy living/foodie blogs but only because I really do like them and feel comfortable recommending them to my readers.

It's best to use other methods for getting backlinks.

[StephenT]

Thanks Angie. I did have kind of a bad feeling, but didn't know if I was passing up something I shouldn't.

[wade_watson]

Yes, I noticed early on that Lynn and other savvy bloggers tend to huddle obligatory outlinks onto a special link page somewhere on the site rather than include them on the sidebar of every page. I strongly suspect the search engines can get wise to the link exchange concept, too. Your incoming and outgoing links need to be relevant to the concept of your site.

That said, I've got one all-link site with hundreds of outgoing links that consistently ranks #1 in Google and gets 10K visits/month with no effort on my part. I guess the most important thing is that your outgoing links serve your visitors well.

[cim85]

Hey Wade,

What is the URL for your all link site so I can have a perusal? I am also a bit sceptical about link exchanges.

Rgds Mark

[StephenT]

Thanks Wade!

[wade_watson]

Hah! It's a free Webs.com site I originally set up just as the front end while I hosted eBay photos in the background: Paper Hollywood (http://www.freewebs.com/moviecardmodels/). This site's gotten at least 10K uniques/month for a good 2-3 years and the only backlinking I've ever done has been a few mentions at one forum and two EZA articles. Unfortunately, it doesn't make me any direct income. I keep meaning to do something about that, but Webs has some restrictions, so I haven't. Fans of free card models don't tend to want to spend much anyway. I'm open to any suggestions, though.

Wade Watson

[cim85]

I checked out your site Wade and I must say it is one of those really cool "niche" sites. Excellent stuff and I can see why you get so many hits due to its unique and unusual content. Thanks for the info.

Rgds Mark

[wade_watson]

Yes, I've always been a model collector to some extent and ran across this web-oriented paper model subculture a few years ago. It's very big in places like Germany, Russia and Japan. I just think it's neat that individuals can create these thing and post kits on the web for anybody to download. There are designers that make money doing that, but I've never gotten into design.

There are lots of great architectural models online, but they demand too much internal real estate for me. I think the paper medium lends itself well to sailing ships and aircraft, thus the 1930s airship hanging from the ceilling over my head.

[cim85]

Wade if I was you I would purchase my own domain and transfer your site to your own hosting provider. That way it would be much easier to monetize your site which should produce some income with that many hits and your "nichey" content. Ignore my comments if you wish, just my opinion. Perhaps time is a barrier at present?

Mark

[wade_watson]

Thanks for the thought, Mark. I've tossed the idea around before. It brings to mind why Lynn usually suggests people start new sites on paid hosting rather than free sites. But since my purpose was to use the free host for another purpose, Paper Hollywood was a surprise side success. I may move it sometime or build a somewhat different site and link to it from PH. Traffic notwithstanding, though, I haven't been too impressed with the the income potential of model-hobby market, so I've kept that on the back burner.

Wade Watson

[cim85]

No probs Wade, sounds like you are all over it. It always surprises me how successful a "side site" can be eventhough your intentions were elsewhere when you first construct it. Keep up the good work!

[Suzi]

Wow! I didn't know this stuff existed! Maybe you could link each product to the dvd of the movie that people could buy, and to other merchandising about the movie....

Suzi

[wade_watson]

Ideas. Ideas. I should post links to more non-profit producing sites here. You guys are a good influence.

[MikeF421]

When I first got started online I used link exchanges because that's what many of the "experts" out there were saying to do. Live and learn I guess.

Unless there is a really good reason, I refuse all link requests now. Search engines prefer one-way links. Plus with link exchanges you have to keep up and make sure your link partners are keeping their end of the bargain.

It's just not a productive use of time, and the benefit is too small. In the time it takes me to find 2-3 link partners, I could write 3-4 articles and have them submitted to a few hundred article directories. There's a few hundred links instead of 2-3.

[KarenMcG]

Oh cool. I like the way you've set up this page with the links.

Thank you for showing us.