Promote Websites

Link Exchanges, History Lesson
In the good old days in mid to late nineties, exchanging links was how the internet worked, and how you would discover new websites on the internet. Surfers had no access to search engines of today’s standards, one exception perhaps being AltaVista. Webmasters and internet surfers found each other through links.

Banners, Webrings and Themed Links
Most sites linked to other sites, mainly those within the same theme and topic but usually also to interesting websites and portals. Groups of related websites were often organized in banner exchange and webring networks. All websites worth visiting did heavily in button and reciprocal text link exchanges. Most websites had a links page containing links, and actively sought out related websites to make text, button and banner link exchanges with.

Times Change for Reciprocal Links
However, as search engines and Google in particular began rating sites on incoming links, many webmasters began to aggressively seek link exchanges and free for all links, a.k.a. link farms. In response to this, search engines implemented various counter measures to penalize this when done too much.

Website Link Exchanges Today
You have to take care with reciprocal links. Do not have so many link exchanges that it resembles a link farm. Only exchange links with websites that cover related themes and topics. Make sure to avoid bad neighborhood websites. Do not link to sites with content of low quality.