Exchanging links does work - but not when you are exchanging them with the vast majority of template web sites. And unfortunately that encompasses the majority of agents with web sites. You would be doing everybody a favor by refusing all link exchanges unless the agents' actual links page is included in Google's index.

You can check if an agent's links page is listed in Google by placing your mouse over the links page, right-clicking, and choosing "Properties" from the resulting menu. This brings up a box with the actual page url. Now that you know the page's real url, first check and make sure it is from the same domain as the site you think you are exchanging links with - it may be from an off-site links management program. If that is the case you are definitely wasting your time exchanging links.

If it is not from an off-site links management program copy the actual page name, go to Google and type in the search box "cache:thedomain.com/pagename.html" where "thedomain.com/pagename.html" is the page name of the site you are checking out.

This command will show whether Google has cached a copy of the page which it does for all pages included in it's index. If there is no cached copy, do not bother exchanging links with them - it is a waste of time.
*UPDATED INFO* As of mid December 2004 Google's cache: command often does not work. It will show no cached page even though there actually is a cached page and even though the page is actually indexed. So, I recommend also pasting the actual url into Google's search box without using the cache: command and searching for the page.

One other thing to check is the actual links themselves on the links page where your link would reside. When you place your mouse over one of the links to a Realtor listed on the page, you will see the actual url the link points at in the status bar of the browser window. The status bar is the bottom of the window.

Look at this url - it should be written in standard html. If the url has any non-text characters in it like question marks '?' or equal signs '=' then the links are written using scripting that can't be followed to the web site. There is no benefit from such a link. Again, do not bother exchanging links as it is a waste of time.
*UPDATED INFO* Google will list pages with session IDs (? or = in the url) in its index but will not follow any of the links contained on the page. It does this to prevent its spider from getting confused and trapped. So, even if you see one of these pages is listed in Google - there is no benefit to having your link on the page.

*NEW DEVELOPMENT* A new link attribute is now being almost universally accepted whereby if - 'rel="nofollow" - is included in the link code search engine spiders will not follow the link which renders the link of no value in a link trade. It may be wise to actually view the source code of pages that would contain your link (or pages that already do) to ensure that the webmaster is not trading links that are worthless.

Other search engines also use link popularity and if the links page does not meet the above criteria and can't be found in Google then it likely isn't in other search engines either.

Hear, hear.

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I've installed the Google toolbar on my browser to check out PR ranking of Google when I visit a website. I always have an eye on search engine traffic potential of sites I visit.

Another tool I use is LinkPopularity.com. You can check the popularity of a prospective site you are considering linking with.

Another comment is that in some cases you may be hurt by a reciprocal. If a reciprocal is an avid spammer or is banned by the engines, that will actually hurt you by association in the engines.

I'm an SEO practitioner myself, but I'm relatively new in the real estate web world. My sites are now starting to make moves, however.

Good luck to all!

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Ruperto Elpusan Jr.
Banker's Realty
website: www.FineHomesInLA.com
e-mail: Ruperto@FineHomesInLA.com

The Google Toolbar is a good tool but you have to be careful in interpreting the PR ranks given. It is almost impossible to determine if a site is penalized using only the toolbar - a PR0 alone does not indicate a penalty and a link from a page with PR0 can still have some benefit. A grey toolbar indcates for sure that a site is not listed in Google and if the site has been around for several months this could be indicative of a penalty - but since Google does not list the site it should not hurt you (in Google at least).

For most agents, having the toolbar is probably not necessary to effectively exchange links - just make sure that the actual page on which your link is located resides on the actual web site and is not part of a links management program - and of course make sure that the actual page is included in Google's index. Checking both of those items will generally ensure that you are receiving helpful reciprocal links.

You are right when you caution about being hurt by certain sites linking to you. It is best to keep away from "link farms" where member sites exchange almost identical lists of links.

Also, something most Realtors are not aware of is that many popular web site providers have set up hidden "link farms" in an attempt to improve the rankings of their search-engine-unfriendly sites and in these cases almost ALL of their web sites end up being penalized.

The list of the guilty include some of the biggest and most popular website providers who shall remain nameless but if anyone has questions about if their site is penalized - feel free to email me using the email link in my profile.

These penalties are put in place by Google (Yahoo, AOL Search, Netscape, and IWon.com included) and/or Inktomi (MSN Search, HotBot, and soon Yahoo) - so sites can be affected in pretty much all of the major search engines.

Of course these penalties cost big time as no amount of exchanging lnks can help you and the only recourse for agents looking for traffic is to pay thousands of dollars to pay-per-click engines to generate some targeted traffic. It makes sense to pay attention to these issues!

I agree with you that the Google toolbar in and of itself is not useful. Besides, the Google toolbar is a couple months late these days and isn't as reliable in the past.

There are a lot of things that goes into determining the true worth of a site's search engine friendliness --- too much more than most agents could or should be involved with.

But just in case there are do-it-yourselfers out there, there is a lot of info out there these days. Here's a short read of basics, and still not too basic, which costs only $9.95 direct from Amazon that's worth a look-see:

Search Engine Optimization on an Extreme Budget - http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0...4770930-7734467

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Ruperto Elpusan Jr.
Banker's Realty
website: www.FineHomesInLA.com
e-mail: Ruperto@FineHomesInLA.com

Hey, Doug, I'd be interested in your list of some seemingly popular real estate websites that are are deceptively not SE-friendly.

Like I said, this is a new industry for me although SEO is something I've done since forever. ;-)

Hit me up!

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Ruperto Elpusan Jr.
Banker's Realty
website: www.FineHomesInLA.com
e-mail: Ruperto@FineHomesInLA.com

As mentioned in my previous post, I will not publish a list of offenders - I prefer to spend my summer golfing and not arguing and fighting threats of lawsuits

But, if anyone has a question about a specific provider or wants their suspicions confirmed as to why they can't seem to get their website positioned in search engines - I will be happy to help. Just email me using the link in my profile.

In the continuing quest for mutually beneficial link exchanges - here is a bit more info on the subject.

The real reason links are exchanged is because Google looks at the number of links pointing at a website and that helps it determine whether or not the website is of value. In general terms - the more links - the higher the website ranks.

In order for a link to count though, the actual page that contains the link must be included in Google's index - and most links pages of high-volume traders are not.

There are many, many sites out there that are ranking #1 for competitive keywords because the have hundreds of links pointing at them as a result of doing 100's of link exchanges over the years.

The kicker is, that most of these sites are not really returning the favor - their own links pages are not listed in Google so those they link to receive zero benefit in return!

So, hundreds of agents out there are helping other agents be #1 and seeing nothing in return! Their own rankings do not improve much.

Do you want to be one of those "suckers"? Here is how to make sure you are not!

The important thing to do is to check out where on the agents site your link will be placed. If they have a large link directory divided up into states - go to the page that would most likely contain your link.

You can check if an agent's links page is listed in Google by placing your mouse over the links page, right-clicking, and choosing "Properties" from the resulting menu. This brings up a box with the actual page url.

Now that you know the page's real url, first check and make sure it is from the same domain as the site you think you are exchanging links with - it may be from an off-site links management program. If that is the case you are definitely wasting your time exchanging links.

If it is not from an off-site links management program copy and paste that url shown in the "Properties" box to your browser's address bar to bring up the exact page displaying the links - this is especially important if the agent has a framed site.

If you have the Google Toolbar, you can use it to view Google's cached copy of the page - it it does have a cached copy then it is in Google's index - link away!

If you do not have the Google Toolbar you can go to Google and type in the search box "cache:http://www.thedomain.com/actual_page_name.html"

If Google has not cached the actual links page then it is 99.9% certain it is not in Google's index and is of no benefit to you.

Be especially vigilant if someone asks to exchange links and they have a very large link directory - most of pages in such a directory and not indexed. Also be vigilant if the person has a template site as most links pages on template sites are not search-engine-friendly and as such are not included.

If you have previously exchanged links with a lot of other agents, on a slow day you may want to purge your own links page of all the links that are not actually returning the favor because they did not place your link on a page included in Google's index.

Maybe then the message would start to get out that a link exchange has to benefit both parties equally - and they would start giving instead of just taking!

Here is an update and some information that may make it a lot easier for agents to decide whether or not a site is worth while as a reciprocal link trade.

The other day I was editing the directory at http://www.epoweredprofessionals.com and checking to make sure that those agents included were still providing a reciprocal link as required.

I was surprised to find that almost all of the agents with Advanced Access websites who had placed a link back to the directory from their "Favorite Links" page no longer qualified for inclusion in the directory.

It seems even though there was a link back to the directory that within the past few months their links pages had changed so that they were no longer providing a bonafide reciprocal link that met the criteria I outlined earlier!

In fact, there is now only a couple of sites that still qualify and I suspect that in the near future those will change as well.

Advanced Access was really the only template site provider that had a links page that met the criteria - at least in some cases it met the criteria anyway. Now, that is no longer the case.

In my opinion weeding out link exchanges that have no value has just got a whole lot easier.... If the person wanting to exchange links has a template site - the correct answer is now "no thank you"!

Kind of a negative way to start out a forum on Recipricol Links, though I do agree with you to some degree.
While buiding Link Popularity to climb the SEO ladder is a big motivation for creating link directories, they also provide an added value resource to our site users. If in the process we can get some valid links back, all the better. But, I am not going to lose sleep or waste my time checking on every one who agrees to reciprocate with a link.
As for templates, I built my new site from the ground up and am just now in the process of launching it.
Want to exchange links? Great! Check out http://www.neodemesne.com and drop me a line.

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~neodemes~

Wow! I am impressed! I am amazed at the lengths some will go to rip off link traders!

I was just checking out the links pages of an Insurance Company to check if they had installed a client's reciprocal link - and they had - but when I used Google to search the site the link was not found.

I could not figure out why - the page was in Google's index and it was cached and the cache showed the link was there but Google could not find the link when the site was searched. Viewing source showed the link was really there and not inserted by a script - what could it be?

When I checked the page using WebBug (http://www.cyberspyder.com) it showed a different page! The Insurance company was using a redirect so the Google spider was seeing a different page with no links - but the rest of us, including the spider that creates Google's cached copies, were seeing a page wih links.

End result? Any links on that page are totally useless! They sure went through a lot of trouble to make fools out of everyone.
I never though Google's cache would display a different page than the one actually listed by Google!

I guess I have to add one more step when checking links pages now - check them out in WebBug!

Oh what the heck let me throw a couple of cents in... Now one thing that most agents don't understand is that you DON'T have to just exchange links with other real estate agents... Try busy local sites, busy distant sites... Where do most of your new moves and relo's come from... Exchange links with sites from that area. Hell cultivate another area... I once had great success with exchanging links with sites based in foreign countries where alot of the new residents and/or tourists and/or winter residents came from... I have found that people from overseas tend to be a little more open when working with someone in a foreign country...

Just a couple of thoughts and NO link exchanging is not dead...

Good Luck

Duane

Since the original post is now over a year and a half old, I have updated it with new information and a new development so you will be well informed when considering link trades

Does anyone know what is considered good "link popularity" I have been using Market Leap. For a while our site was showing up with a link popularity of close to 140,000 then it dropped down to 36,000. Were they not indexing all the search engines. For a while I thought I saw other search engines on Marketleap.
Can someone explain how this link popularity works and what is considered good, better, best?

The Google toolbar, or foolbar how it has been referred to lately in the seo world can be used in moderation. Basing your opinions on the worthyness of a site upon it is not a good idea.
a year ago it was very accurate and now you need to take a look at many more factors such as "do the search engines like the sites I link to"?

Linking to the wrong neighborhoods can hurt.

Google has also dropped a huge number of it's own pages out of it's index.
Everything indicated some major changes coming our way ...

Americasdoorstep.com, link popularity is more than just the number of links. Also important is the link text and the page the link resides on. It is not unusual to see a site with a handful of links outranking a site with thousands of links.

Links are not as important for ranking well in Yahoo and MSN as they are in Google so acquiring link popularity is mostly done for Google's benefit.

With Google's latest patent application it now seems that the old rules about acquiring links have changed - if they haven't already. How fast links are acquired probably also are factored into the equation.

Good link popularity can't be defined by numbers unfortunately.