Skip to content

Is link exchange safe for SEO?

Updated

Short answer: a handful of link exchanges between sites that belong together is a normal part of the web. Swapping links in bulk, only to push rankings, is what search engines call link spam. The difference is relevance and scale.

What Google says

Google's spam policies list “excessive link exchanges” as a form of link spam, together with partner pages that exist only for cross-linking. The key word is excessive. Google does not say that two related sites may never link to each other: links between sites that are useful to the same visitors are how the web has always worked.

What Google tries to ignore, or in bad cases act against, are links that only exist to manipulate rankings: hundreds of swaps with unrelated sites, link pages nobody reads, and schemes that hide that the links are traded.

Signs of a healthy link exchange

  • The sites are related. A dentist and a dental hygiene blog, a hotel and a local tour guide. Your visitors would plausibly want to click the link.
  • The link has a natural place. In an article where the other site is relevant, or on a short, curated resources page about your topic.
  • The numbers stay modest. A few well-chosen partners, added over time, not dozens in a week.
  • The anchor text is natural. The site's name or a plain description, not the same exact keyword on every link.

Signs of a risky link exchange

  • The other site has nothing to do with yours.
  • Your link would end up on a page with hundreds of other links, or in a footer on every page of the site.
  • Someone proposes a “three-way” exchange (A links to B, B to C, C to A) to make the swap harder to spot.
  • Money changes hands. Paid links should carry rel="sponsored"; a link exchange is not a way around that.

What about nofollow?

A link with rel="nofollow" asks search engines not to treat it as an endorsement. It still brings visitors, and it can never count as link spam. If you are unsure about a partner, it is the safe choice; just agree on it with your partner first, because many webmasters exchange links hoping for the search engine value as well. Linkorado checks that the link is on the page; it does not look at the rel attribute.

How Linkorado keeps exchanges relevant

Every site on Linkorado is listed in one of more than 500 categories, so you find partners with content like yours instead of random sites. You choose each partner yourself and can decline any request. Once an exchange is complete, Linkorado keeps checking that both links stay in place, and lets you know when one goes missing.

The bottom line

Exchange links the way you would recommend a site to a friend: only with sites you would link to anyway, in a place where the link makes sense, and not too many at once. Done like that, a link exchange is safe and brings you real visitors.

Sources