Reciprocal Link Building and Inbound link building

Last Updated: 2009

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This article covers

• What is reciprocal link building
• Why reciprocal link building is becoming obsolete
• What is inbound link building (or one-way link building)
• What is three-way link building
• Diagrammatic explanation of three-way linking process

Reciprocal Link Building Definition

Reciprocal link building is the name given to the process of exchange of links between two websites.

The links exchanged may not be directly reciprocated – website A may give a link from page A1 to page B1 of Website B while website B may reciprocate the link by linking to page A2 of website A from its page B4.

Decline of Reciprocal link building

Reciprocal link building is popularly known as link exchange. Webmasters would exchange links with each other in a hope to attract traffic. When Google introduced the concept of PageRank, which treated links as a vote or endorsement which in turn affected a website’s ranking in natural search engine results, link exchange became even more popular.

With time, many webmasters started exchanging links purely to influence website rankings in search engines. Search engines are said to be observing reciprocal link building as artificial inflation of links. It has been observed that link exchange has lost its weight–age as far as enhancing website rankings in SERPs is concerned.

None of the research has shown that websites that carry out reciprocal link building are penalized in any way. It has become a process that is much easier than building one–way links (links that are not reciprocated) but one that today has minimal value as far as natural search engine rankings are concerned.

Inbound Link Building Definition

While reciprocal link building involves exchange of links, inbound link building is a process that doesn’t involve exchange of links between two websites. Inbound links are also called one–way links. As the name suggests, one–way linking is building links for the website without reciprocating it.

If Website A receives a link from any webpage of website B without having to give a link back to website B, then this link is an inbound link for website A.

Emergence of Three–way Link Building

Logically, any website would give a link out to another website without getting anything in return only if it truly endorsed it. For natural search engine rankings, one–way links should then hold more value than reciprocated links.

Now the problem was creating these one–way links. One alternative that was gladly adopted by many web property owners is the process of three–way linking.

In true sense, creating one–way links for a website is difficult, especially for a new website. We would be discussing various methods in the next article. Here, we’ll only discuss three–way linking.

Three-way link building originated when it was observed that search engines preferred non-reciprocated links. Three–way link building is essentially reciprocal linking; the difference is that three websites are involved instead of two.

Example explaining three-way link building

Let’s assume that website A wants a link for webpage A1 and can give a link out from webpage A3 while website B wants a link for webpage B1. For a three way linking process to occur, one of the link partners must own two websites. Here, let’s assume owner of website B also owns and website C.

Website A gives a link from webpage A3 to webpage B1 of Website B. In return, website C links to webpage A1 of website A from webpage C1. Here, website B has earned an inbound or one–way link.

Alternatively, web property owners may hire an SEO firm for three–way linking. In such a case, the SEO firm would approach link partners, give them a link out from one of its own web properties in return of a link for the client’s website.

Say website A is approached by SEO firm who gives a link to webpage A1 from its website C while website A gives a link to client website B. Here, all three websites have different owners.

The same example is also explained using the following diagram in Link Building FAQs. Here, the SEO firm is shown to own many online properties which it uses to give out links to link partners who in return, give a link to the client website.

In our next article, we’ll list various other methods of building one–way links which don’t require reciprocation.