I am in the process of reviewing the sites that I have exchanged links with. My plan was to have one of my other sites add a link to the link pages that are not cached in google to help the pages make it in

I am about 1/3 of the way through the process and have found over 1/2 the sites either never added my link or have removed them.

Is this typical?

This is a pain -

Dave

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Dave Abernathy
Waterfront Properties & Club Communities
Technology Advisory Council for Who's Who in Luxury Real Estate

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Dave,

No reciprocation is just one of the problems with reciprocal linking. There are a host of others such as frames, deep linking, non-indexed pages, etc. In addition to the technical problems I question the present and future value of reciprocal linking. I believe reciprocal linking is valid linking but not in the way it is presently being done by the majority of SEOs and web masters. No matter what slant you put on it, reciprocal linking in the vast majority of cases is artificial and Google is continually updating their alogos to eliminate non-natural linking. A current thread "Does Google Ban or Filter Web Directories?" http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/30575.htm examines why Google banned hundreds of sites with directories on 7/28, some of the sites had reciprocal type directories. I don't think the ban effected many real estate sites but that Google is actively banning what they consider artificial linking does not bode well for reciprocal linking in general. Banning is most likely reserved for the worse offending sites but we do not know if Google is simply devaluing the links in less offensive sites. What is going on has me re-thinking the process and I am examining three other methods of linking.

1. triangular linking
2. embedded links in content pages
3. article writing

Obviously these methods take more time but I believe the link value will be much more enduring.

YES, it is typical, and it stinks!

I could not agree more.

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Infinity Commercial Group - Commercial Lending Services

Infinity Website

I use reciprocal links very sparingly. I spent many many hours building one way links in the beginning. I then purchased reciprocal manager 3.0 to handle submissions and automatically check reciprocity. If those people are found to have moved my link or removed it, they are automatically notified. If they don't respond they're links is disabled and I'm notified. I can then choose to remove it. It was a cheap solution then (I think $67). they have recently updated to version 4.0 and raised the price by about $100.

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Chicago Real Estate Add URL

I've been using a free link manager program for a little while now, with the same capabilities - having the program automatically check your reciprocal links is a nice feature to have.

I'm more concerned about these threads of google removing sites with link directories. I will definitely go check out the above-mentioned thread on this - I would say that the majority of real estate sites have a directory of some sort for backlink generation and augmentation of content (somewhat scary if google and others pull the plug on this).

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285 Columbus Lofts - New 63-unit Boston loft development in the former Red Cross building
FP3 Boston Condos - FP3 Fort Point Channel Boston Seaport Condos
Boston Real Estate - Providing Google Map based search of condo developments

I like your opinion on the link strategy. Indeed two way reciprocal links are on the downhill. Also, the triangular linking you suggested might not be a good idea either. Google has the resources available to expose this tactic as well.

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