Regardless of your reading habbits do consider reading this entire article. Might be of use! I will try to tell you how to find link exchange partners and how to spot those that are not worth linking to or will not link back. For any questions feel free to comment!
Ohh yeah!!!! There are many things that can go wrong but I'll show you exactly how to avoid them. So to sum up the risks: instead of a link-exchange you can end up giving a one-way link hence no benefit for you or you can end up linking to banned sites (bad neighbourhoods). First is not good, 2nd is really bad!
Now … first things first.
There are two ways:
This is pretty much it. Now I'll take each of them.
I'll explain you the exact methods to find links partners. Also think of your own ideas as you know what's best for your business.
This is where you need to pay attention as I'll teach you to find the frauds. Those who simulate link exchanges and will trick you into giving them one way links. And there are many!
Take each site and see if it is indexed in the search engines! Google goes first then the rest. First verify the hompage then verify the page where your like is supposed to be found.
If page is not in Google's index (assuming you found it on Yahoo! or MSN) I would rather proceed to next. If you do feel it's worth the hustle check the registration date of the domain and see if it's new. If the site is new it might not have been indexed yet even if Google is usually fastest. In 99.9% of the cases the domain is banned so do not link to it as you will not benefit from it. Actually this will hurt you badly as you'll be linking to bad neighbourhoods, strictly and explicitly forbidden by Google and the others!
If all went well check cache for the page where you will get your link.
Step by step Google real link exchnager check!
This is G o o g l e's cache of http://www.********************/ as retrieved on X Sep 200X XX:XX:XX GMT.
Which is found here:

<meta name="Robots" content="index,follow,archive" />
The code above is the legit version! A link swap scammer will have something like:
<meta name="Robots" content="noindex or nofollow or both" />
If meta check out OK there's one last thing to check!
<a href="http://******/">Link Text</a>
The code above is the legit version! It will not contain the rel nofollow attribute like:
<a href="http://******/" rel="nofollow">Link Text</a>
For accesibillity and speed do a search for nofollow in the text and see what it applies to and judge as mentioned above. If you do find any see where they are. It's regular practice to place nofollow on your links to disclaimer or privacy policy pages and is a good sign showing they know what they are doing.
Finally, but this step can be skipped, take a look at Page Rank in the Toolbar but that is more or less relevant. The magic is in numbers when you do link exchanges so go for it if it is indexed in Search Engines and with recent cache dates.
If isInGoogleIndex checkCache();
if noCacheFound then exit();
checkDateOfCache();
if olderThen(2Weeks) exit();
findInCacheHtml(nofollow OR noindex);
if foundInInappropriatePlaces exit();
establishContactAndAttemptLinkExchange();
Success!
Fill in the link exchange form or write a nice link exchange request email and go for it. See if it works! And keep doing it …
By the way, if you found this interesting do consider a one-way link from your link exchange directory to this page / this site.
Thanks.
Post Feedback