Building Authority With Blogroll/Sitewide Link Exchange
January 11th, 2008 by CourtWarning: This lesson is going to expose the brutally honest side of Court. 
Almost every time I talk about this kind of authority building, I get two big questions:
- I thought that two-way, reciprocal links weren’t as effective as they used to be. Why would we do them if they aren’t effective?
- Why would you trade links with a direct competitor? Wouldn’t you ultimately end up sending clicks to them?
Reciprocal Links
Ok this bit of advice goes out to all of the SEO elitists out there that have spent 8,000 hours in SEO forums but still can’t buy dinner at Wendy’s with their Adsense commissions: Stop reading and start working. You have to stop buying into everything you read and start relying on your own testing to decide what works.
Why can I recommend using this technique when some people say that it isn’t effective anymore? Because I’ve done the testing and I’ve done it again and again. It doesn’t make a bit of difference to me what people believe when I have practical knowledge that tells me otherwise.
Here’s what some of you are doing to yourselves. You read somewhere that reciprocal links aren’t as effective as they used to be. You also read somewhere that using articles to build links aren’t that effective because of duplicate content issues. You won’t use the D-List to build links because the links are from sites that aren’t related to yours. Since you haven’t tested any of this stuff out for yourself, you sit there doing nothing to build links.
Let’s say for example purposes that we create two identical sites. Now these sites have nearly identical domain names, age, content (of course each would have unique content so they wouldn’t conflict with each other), and incoming links. Ok so the sites are almost exactly the same, and this will leave them ranked in roughly the same position in Google. What do you think happens if one of them trades five blogroll links and the other doesn’t? The one that did the trades will move in front of one that doesn’t.
So tell me this, where’s the reciprocal link argument now? “But Court, reciprocal links aren’t very effective!” I’ll tell you what isn’t very effective, doing nothing while people like me are able to get almost any ranking they want because they use these techniques.
I’m well aware that there would be more of a ranking advantage if you could get the site to link to you without linking back. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t a benefit to using this technique. You should trade the links, start to build some authority, and then hope to get some cheap and easy one-way links.
If you have any more questions about this, feel free to ask. I’m being more brutal than usual because I’m starting to see people in self-destruct mode. That doesn’t mean that I’m mad at anybody. 
Trading Links With Competitors
People continue to be concerned about trading links with competitors. They are afraid of giving traffic away to their competitors. Guys, these are the best links that you can get! Would you rather get 15 hits per day on your site while not giving any traffic away to competitors or get 1500 hits per day while giving 100 of them away to your competitors? The links that will give you the most powerful ranking advantage will come from sites that are closely related to yours - this will be your direct competition.
I’m starting to see a huge trend here guys and I have to admit that it has me concerned. People won’t use techniques that will help them because they’re afraid of failure. In my mind, giving traffic away to a competitor is a good problem to have because that means that you have traffic to give away. Most people never even get that far because of all of their fear.
Guys I know what I know because I’ve failed literally hundreds of times. I have done thousands of tests on literally hundreds of sites. If you want to succeed without failing you probably aren’t ever going to succeed. I’m willing to share what I’ve learned during this process guys but at some point every one of you is going to have to face your fear of failure.
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January 11th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Court It always so crazy that peeps do not get that OMG there are just so many keyword combinations for one niche that why worry about trading link with a guy on the same niche. So he works “red ants” and I work “blue ants” we are still on the same niche but we help each other like the earth will fall.
When I wok a niche, while doing my home work I might see a keyword that has 7 million searches but yet in the same niche their might be one that only has 60k but yet that keyword has 50% of the competition then the first one hey I shoot for that one.
I am noticing with my mentor program how folks tend to gravitate to the Holly Grail of each niche. If they work the Ants niche, yup buddy they go for the gusto they want to go for “Ants” right of the bat.
The fact is that competition might be competition on a niche but it is beneficial for both to use each others authority to become stronger on different keywords.
People you and your competitor are not the only ones working a niche their may be thousands working that same niche and keyword so better to split in 2 then in 10k.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Man Vic thanks for your input and I love the ‘red ants, blue ants’ analogy.
I think I’m going to go more into helping people to select niches that don’t have as much competition because that affects the success rate quite a bit. In your example about the 7 million vs. 60k I would also take the one will less competition.
What people are missing so far is that they should select a niche with tiny amounts of competition so they can get their #1 ranking. What happens then? All the sudden they start believing in themselves and in the techniques.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Court you are so right. Please make a post about this Court. I am seeing the folks doing what we preach but geezzz they go for the home run of the bat. It will be just like you said go for a narrower niche with less competition see faster results and also have a chance to better their skills. But over all Court I am just so happy that people seem to be getting it now it is just a matter of getting better at their craft.
May 8th, 2008 at 7:43 pm
So true so true, I followed all the techniques here blindly regardelss of what “other” have said especially about reciprocals with same niche and I can see GREAT results on my site from it, and with the sales and traffic came a great belief in the techniques and the motivation to continue!! Just build links relevant, same niche it will work!!
Olga
January 29th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
Hooray! Seems like a no-brainer to me.
January 11th, 2008 at 11:39 am
good article
thanks
rc
trading tennis blog
January 11th, 2008 at 11:42 am
This kind of article is why I will continue to listen to Court and Vic!
Job well done, Court.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Hey Court-
your post was blunt but necessary. like everything in life, the real learning comes with trial and error.
I’m happy to say that I took your keyword snipe advice to heart and built a little blog around a very very specific and low-competition set of keywords just to see how it would work, and it is working very well! I’m moving up the rankings in google fast. I’m ready to try some more. You ‘da man!
January 11th, 2008 at 6:23 pm
That’s awesome Jeff! It’s already working for a lot of people and I’m very glad that it’s working for you!
January 11th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Hey Court I think that trying something and failing is the best way to learn. In order to be successful you have to learn from your failures or you may never be successful. Unless of course you get lucky. Ha
January 11th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Dude, brilliant! What gets me is that all the people who preach this, are the people who as you say, aren’t getting anywhere with anything.
Preach it brother, preach it!
January 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I get so fed up of people contacting me about 3-way link exchanges saying that 2-way doesn’t work any more.
Well, the likes of problogger and shoemoney “trade” links, just in a very natural way.
I also bought a link from a strong site that has nothing to do with mine and found it worked really well. So I bought another for a different site.
I’m now just trying everything to see if it works. If it doesn’t, oh well.
January 12th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Have any of you heard of the 3-way link program Jonathon Leger has going. His salesletter seems pretty convincing and I was told my some peers he’s a good guy that is quite smart.
Anyone had experience with it?
Thanks,
Mike
P.S. And Court, great post and nice to see you get a little “tough love” with your valuable subscribers
January 11th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Sometimes the amount of conflicting material that you read can become paralyzing. I have to remember that taking action is still better than doing nothing.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:25 pm
That’s exactly why you have to test the ideas for yourself! You’ll never really know what works and what doesn’t without doing the testing.
January 11th, 2008 at 1:48 pm
Here’s a secret for you, that’s part of my strategy on my Free Blog Review program on OpTempo. While I don’t request a link exchange, I usually get one anyway. Of course, the reviewee gets a top level link and at least 3 deep links out of the deal.
I don’t know if something like this would work in niches or not, but it seems like some sort ‘product placement’ style posts would work.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I think it could work in niches in some cases Frank. It would of course depend on the niche.
January 11th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Another great post. Thanks Court!
January 11th, 2008 at 2:56 pm
Court,
You are exactly right! And Vic, do you have a thing for ants? lol…
Anyways, I know what you are talking about and having talked to Vic about some of the same stuff, it doesn’t matter where the links come from, just get them.
I put a new niche site up first thing this morning, and I am already seeing traffic to it!
You guys (Court, Vic and Grizz) are simply amazing, and I have just about stopped reading all the other crap out there and am focusing on fine tuning what you are telling US to do.
THANK YOU!
January 11th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Warning: This lesson is going to expose the brutally honest side of Court,
I like this side of Court, Ill pas on telling you what my next post was about, but it was related , good stuff Court
January 11th, 2008 at 4:59 pm
Court I fully agree with what you’re saying. I’ve seen benefits of leaving comments on D List blogs as well as asking for link exchanges. A good way for people to see the benefits might be by using a Link Checker online. When they see that their competitors have a lot more links coming to them then their site does, they may change their strategy.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
I think your idea of targeting a local keyword is valid here too Court.
I can’t see any problem trading links with a site promoting “colorado Lasi Surgery” if I’m promoting “New York Lasic Surgery”
January 11th, 2008 at 6:28 pm
Very true! I personally don’t mind trading with people going for the exact same keywords because I can almost always beat them in other areas.
January 11th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Hi Court,
It’s simply great to see there are people like you who so unselfishly stands out to help struggling bloggers like me.
So if anyone of Court’s readers here would like to exchange some link love, I am all ready!
Sorry for whoring myself here.
Thought it was an appropriate opportunity.
January 12th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Court, thanks for another great article. I stumbled into your site several weeks ago and have devoured your content. Spent a little time throwing together a niche site (based on your keyword sniper guidance) and watching the magic happen.
Thanks for sharing your knowledge!
You are da man!
January 12th, 2008 at 4:50 am
Aaaargh, why did you post this Court? Why did you tell people to actually do something? Seriously, I’ll have more competition now. I like it best when other people aren’t working at all
Seriously, how many bloggers make an attempt to rank on page 1 in Google for terms like internet marketing, make money online etc? Very few. And it’s better that way actually, easier for me
January 12th, 2008 at 5:23 am
One of my sites is an eshop, selling designer gear(clothes,accessories, etc. I have it on-line for about 4 months now. My main SEO task when I first went on-line, was reciprocal linking. I did this in such a way that each particular area of my shop, ie, menswear, sunglasses, etc, had their own link page. I only exchanged links with relevant sites, i.e. sunglasses sites to my sunglass link page etc and only have a max of 20-25 links per page. I know there is debate over whether its really necessary to exchange with related sites but that’s another story.
What I’m getting at is that I ranked number one in google for my target keyword within two months (maybe even a bit less)and am now moving nicely up the ladder with my other main keywords (which are very competitive).
I guess what I’m saying is that I have to totally agree 100% with what Court is saying in this article
January 12th, 2008 at 5:34 am
I love your site Court; I have learnt heaps since I started reading a couple of weeks ago. I’m still a newby though, so sorry if this question seems daft. How do you actually go about getting the links from similar or competing sites? Do you simply ask for a link? And how can you control which anchor text they link to you with?
January 12th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Yes Milly you ask them to trade with you. You will ask what anchor text they would like you to use, and will tell them what anchor text you would like them to use.
January 13th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
I sae your 5,263 Words On Starting A Profitable Blog last saturday. And now I have my own. Sometimes I think I’m in over my head. But I will not give up. Thank you so much!
Will you trade a link Please? My anchor text is deer hunting. Thanks
January 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am
I am another one of those who have failed a number of times. I can vouch for one thing common with habitual failures. They simply refuse to learn from the failures of the others. They think that they will win where the other guys failed.
This is a peculiar human trait. There are some who will want to learn because, most likely, they have already burnt their fingers and wish to get of the mess already created.
You are doing a good job sharing your experience and giving sensible advise. If all the guys visiting your blog would take your advise, there simply would not be any failures at all. Frankly, I do not see that happening.
January 12th, 2008 at 11:13 am
that was a great and useful article, I’m having trouble with link building, this will help a lot
thanks!
January 12th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
[…] your niche is the slower your progress will be. So people if you have not yet read Court’s Building Authority With Blogroll/Sitewide Link Exchange you better go read it right now and take it to fucking heart now more then ever the other article […]
January 12th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
I notice yahoo shows you have 444 inbound links to the lasik site. A ton are from mybloglog.
can you share how that works to get so many people linking to you from mybloglog. Even one of the inbound links showing in the google index is from mybloglog
also, do you think the articles are already propagating since you are also receiving a lot of links from other sites as well?
January 12th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
I actually didn’t do anything to get the links from MyBlogLog. They don’t look like the kind of links that are going to last for very long.
Yes the articles are already circulating and I’ve also been doing the D-List.
January 12th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Hi.. Also, in doing a link search another site has a lot of links to you: http://emoneymarketing.com
but, when viewing the inbound link page url that is given there does not seem to be any links directly to your lasik site. However, this site has the mybloglog display on the side bar.. is there a connection?
January 12th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
I’m not sure about that one, but I can tell you that those links aren’t going to be worth much. I wouldn’t try to replicate them because they aren’t going to do much for you.
Once you start seriously building links though you’ll find that links will start popping up all over the place.
January 12th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
I notice on this site you have a different type of tag cloud than on the lasik site. Both tag clouds use permalinks. Do you mind sharing which tag cloud plugins you use on this site and the lasik site. That plug in is nice because it is vertical.
January 12th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
It isn’t a plugin David. The newest WordPress version has tags built in. The tag clouds look different because the themes of the two sites style them differently.
All you have to do to make that tag cloud with the keyword sniper theme is go into Presentation > Widgets and drag it into the sidebar.
January 12th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Dear Court,
Hats off this time.
This is the first time I comment on your blog because this is the most authentic post I’ve read all the while.
I applied just a small portion on what you have taught and I got PR2 for my new blog- secretsofunlimitedwealth.com within 5 weeks. What you have taught and shared actually WORKS and I thank you for sharing your knowledge and experience generously.
It’s easy and no risk to say this and that is not working and talk a bunch of gurus’ theory. But every blog post of yours give me REAL VALUE and REAL EXPERIENCE. You even took on the challenge to do a case study on “Colorado Lasik Surgery”.
That’s very generous and thank you very much for teaching me so many things I can’t even learn by reading those gurus’ ebook. Love this post and always in action because Action Rocks!
About the blogroll, I have some comments.
Trading links on blogroll with other blogger have a powerful advantage which is a practice of ABUNDANCE.
People always think traffic is scarce which means if traffic coming to their sites means traffic gone from somewhere to here. If other bloggers get traffic, they might lose traffic because it gone from their blog to compeptitors’.
In fact, traffic is not scarce. More and more people becoming internet users and more time is spend on the internet. The overall “Traffic” in the world is growing. If we give people traffic, we get more back.
Maybe I have 100 visitors on my blog and 50 of them visit other people’s blog. And let’s say they have the same situation too. But the calculation shows that 50 visitors coming from each blog will give me extra 250 visitors and the 50 that gone out will come back. I have now 350 visitors to my blog. (The rate is too high but using those figure to make calculation easy).
I support what you’ve shared and will find 5 other people by today.
Thanks for sharing and have fun getting ranking to all readers!
Alex
January 12th, 2008 at 10:59 pm
Great Articles Court and linking with competition in same business definitely makes sense…
January 12th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Wow, I really enjoyed this post. Especially the one you said about trading links with competitors. Google algorithms simply love ranking sites that have similar keywords and are connected to one another, so it will be an advantage.
January 13th, 2008 at 5:15 am
I think you have it absolutely correct, that people are concerened about trading links with competitors because they are afraid of giving traffic away to their competitors. I would also have thought so, hence i was very intersted to learn how trading links like that would be mutually beneficial.
January 13th, 2008 at 7:57 am
Trading links with competitors is so out of the box. I would never have considered it, but now it makes total sense. Court you are dead on and I notice your RSS number increasing by the minute
January 13th, 2008 at 11:20 am
I’ve even traded header navigation links with competitors before and it works out marvelously! People are going to leave your site eventually so you might as well do it in a way that benefits you. (Who knows, they might surf around the competitor’s site and come back to yours through the reciprocal link!)
January 13th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Eli from BluehatSEO.com posted a great article on how to automate the process of getting 100s of links in an hour, using a technique which involves scraping the titles of updated blog RSS and using them in your own RSS feeds.
I posted part of the completed script on my site, http://www.cpa-templates.com (look under freebies). Take a look and let me know if its useful.
Cheers.
January 13th, 2008 at 6:40 pm
Court, I am confused. Griz made it quite clear in his latest post that getting all the links from many sites like you are suggesting here is a waste of time.
He says he gets a couple P4 or P5 links and that is better than wasting time getting all the small links. Yet you are saying to get the small links and tons of them. What gives?
January 13th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
Great tips Court! Hope others would understand what you mean about link building strategy. IMO most of us have that problems because of the confusion we have online. So many conflicting opinions on things especially related to seo. I know this because I hang out a lot on SEO forum. But only with experience will tell you what works what not.
p/s I see you already change the homepage title. Congratulation you have already passed one of your competitor. But the next one need more link and time I guess. Anyway well done.
January 14th, 2008 at 3:29 am
I totally agree Court. Now here is the part that was mentioned earlier about going for the Gusto. People seem to hit the keywords like Ants or Plumbing or whatever first. But people dont realize that longertail keywords actually pay better than just a generalized keyword for adsense. peope, you dont have to have 1000 visitors a day to make money with a niche. You can have 50-100 a day and make good money easily.
January 14th, 2008 at 7:37 am
Trading links is very important and i dont think its really about traffic but higher pr, better listings.
January 15th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Good advice Court. I always LOL when I read that reciprocal links don’t work anymore.
The misinformation in the SEO industry has always been quite high. It’s easier to outrank your competition that way, eh?
I always test SEO theories, before buying into them. Nice post, stumbled…
January 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
[…] Advice for building link authority through blogrolls and site wide link exchanges. […]
January 18th, 2008 at 4:18 am
No need for the warning at the beginning of the post, we know that honesty (brutal or otherwise) is your policy
January 23rd, 2008 at 10:38 pm
[…] neighboring Colorado. This concept was also briefly discussed by Vic from Blogger Unleashed in a comment on Court’s site. He talked about link trading with competition, but instead of both chasing […]
January 26th, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Nice tips.
Especially liked the one about trading links with competitors - I major competitor of mine mentioned me on a blog, me - a up and coming nobody at the moment - for that I’m going to hook him seriously
January 29th, 2008 at 10:08 am
All those will end in generating high page rank.Mathew u cant just go and exchange your as if u need to search for related blog and contact them or offer for a link exchange so their is a long process to go on.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pm
Again, super duper post! Please continue with the real deal…
February 5th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
[…] Building Authority with Blogrolls / Sitewide Link Exchanges - Link building is considered to be one of the most important factors in moving up the search engine rankings. A lot is said of deep linking but this post from Courtney Tuttle shows us that sidewide links should not be overlooked. […]
March 17th, 2008 at 11:43 am
very gud post…thnkx…continue in this way
May 9th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Hi Court,
This is a brilliant tips I just hope others would understand what you mean about link building strategy.
Jonclaude
May 9th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
I just finished setting up my first keyword sniper project. I guess this is where the real work starts.
Anyone want to trade links?
May 9th, 2008 at 4:18 pm
What is your site about? If it’s anything to do with tech/laptops/computers I surely will trade with you.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:04 am
[…] Blogroll scambi link(Usare il 50% del vostro tempo qui) […]
June 20th, 2008 at 5:31 pm
[…] Blogroll link exchanges (Use 50% of your time here) […]
August 4th, 2008 at 2:42 am
[…] I happened to stumble across Court’s Internet Marketing School, and Vic’s very colorful and truthful Make Money Online […]