Reciprocal Link:

The result of a link exchange between two website . Site A links to site B and vice versa.

Very often such links are grouped in link directories, i.e. a special page within the website where all the reciprocal links are listed and grouped in categories.

Link exchange was considered a very worthwhile and important webmaster activity until 2005 out of two reasons:

1. to improve link popularity and thereby achieve good search engine rankings and

2. to generate traffic to one’s site directly through the links on as many other sites as possible.

As to 1.: In 2005 Google changed it’s policy (again) and didn’t give credit for Reciprocal Links anymore and websites with a good ranking due to a huge number of Reciprocal Links plummeted down the SERPs from one day to the next.

As to 2.: Less and less visitors on a site check the site’s link directory as many made the experience that they are not built as a valuable resource for visitors but only for the search engines. Therefore traffic from link directories to other sites is decreasing.

Reciprocal links might still have value but not if they are dumped in a link directory (for more information see under deep linking)

[Reciproca lcomes from Latin reciprocus = returning the same way;

Link comes from Old Danish lænkia = chain]

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