Reciprocal links not necessary?

I have a few questions.
1)I read an article from a seemingly reliable source(however dont remember what the site was) that stated that it is no longer necessary to have reciprocal links because creating one way link to a site is all you need now to help your rankings. Is this true?
2)What is a general number of links I should be shooting for per page that I want to optimize? Does it depend on the size of that page?

Thank You

It is slightly different to that. It says that reciprocal links with off-topic sites could actually be harmful.


There is no optimum number of links on a page. This isn't 'SEO by formula'.

"It says that reciprocal links with off-topic sites could actually be harmful."?
Not sure if you are trying to reference the same article, but I can assure you it did not discuss that.

It's a fact, though.

Reciprocal links with quality, related sites are generally ok (though you need to check periodically that the links are still to quality!).

Reciprocal links to non-related sites, at best will do little or no good - and at worst can get you a Google ban. Most often somewhere in between.

The "It" referred to "Google". I should have made that more clear.

yeah i understand that stuff. Maybe my question was a little confusing. What if you have links to Quality sites, but they are not reciprocal? So if I find a relevant site and post a link to it on my webpage will it help. The article was saying you no longer need the site you are linking to have link back to your site.

Google's Last Secret is often held to be the value of linking OUT to quality sites.

I suspect, however, that it does not work in isolation. I see no reason why Google cannot look simultaneously at in, out and reciprocal links, and draw conclusions about the ratios. And it seems to me that the notion of a 'balanced site' may be more important than sheer link numbers.

There's any number of threads on every SEO forum where folk complain that they have 5000 links and no results, so there's really no longer any doubt that sheer numbers (of anything linky) are not the answer.

I certainly wouldn't claim to know what the balance IS for a balanced site, however

I always thought it was a link out and back to a site that was relevant, less than 100 per page, no profanity/hate/porn, that had a page rank of 3 or higher was the what we needed to have to provide good organic links. I was told to steer clear of 3 way links, one way links. I also was told it may be as simple as one great quality link that may be influening a site.

Having been in SEO since the stone age of 1996, the whole concept of reciprical linking started because it was the only way anyone would give your site a link.

"Hey buddy, if you link to my site I'll give you a link to your site."

It never had anything to do with the algorhythm. After time it just entered foke lore and became an "Urban Myth".

so..links in and links out, yes
reciprocal, nice to get, but not needed.

the other consideration is that by linking out you're essentially 'leaking' your pagerank (although pagerank is notas important as it once was). So, if they're not linking to you, i say dont link to them UNLESS its extremely relevant to your site AND its a well known quality website... ie a good and useful link for your visitors.

If your outgoing links to quality sites were important or had an impact on your rankings, i could simply pop on a link to the BBC website and get an instant advantage.. you can see how that would be abused.

Open to interpetration though...

Be careful about getting hooked on "PageRank Leak". If you do not link out at all, then, by definition, you are not in the core of the web.

To be considered as being as a part of the core, you need to link to other pages in the core, and be linked to by pages in the core.

Pages that only have links in, or only have links out, are not considered to be in the core.

I cannot argue the leak versus no leak stuff - but I believe very strongly that linking out to quality sites is a good thing for all sorts of reasons, including it makes it more likely that people will choose to link to you. But I do believe that doing so is recognised in some way by Google - maybe it allows you to offset other 'less desirable' linking patterns, who knows.

I agree with all of you. You do need to link out also, but as stated, make sure its to quality.

One issue I've had with linking out is that if your in ecommerce, and the site is relevent that your linking to, then aren't you sending your customers to your compeditors. People need to watch this.

Google text ads tend to link our sites out to some pretty strange, irrelevent sites.

And for g1smd, here is a map of the core of the internet.
[link]

Cool diagram.

I was looking for the one that Shari Thurow or Alan Perkins shows at SES, but I didn't find it.

Guys, just read Google's line on this. They simply advise to concentrate on building a well structured site with good content. Of course good content includes links to external sites, therefore it is a good thing. In turn, the better your site content, the more likely other websites will link to your pages and you will gain more one way links pointing to your site.

Here's a tip, if your site sells blue widgets, check Google to see which site ranks best for green widgets, contact the webmaster and ask for a link trade. Google will then boost you content score for linking to a site they also believe is good quality (of course they do, they rank it in 1st place) and you will get a good link back to you, as again, it's a site that google thinks is good and also matches your website theme.

Hello everyone; Thought I'd post on this topic as my first posting on this forum. It has been my understanding that reciprocal linking is not the end all be all that it used to be and that, while it probably won't hurt you (assuming linkage to similar topic and/or complimentary sites) your energy can be much better spent in finding on topic, high GPR sites that you can link to (especially sites that will have few other links in which you can link on the index page).

Great forum!

Take Care,
James "Skip" Sommer- Proprietor, Shadowbend Studios

Hi Folks, 1st post. You have a good forum here.

It is my understanding that a balance of one-way links and reciprocals is needed. Anything way out of balance draws Google's unwelcome attention.