I have never seen such horrible irrelevent link exchange requests from fellow webmasters since Axandra's Arelis product caught on in a big way a few years back. The site is called LinkMetro, and it stinks.
Google finally squashed the 2-way link exchange as the SEO-currency; but now LinkMetro is here to facilitate and promulgate the worthless practice despite its decline in usefulness these days.
I get approximately 5 emails per day like this:
"A LinkMetro member has requested a link exchange with 1 or more of your websites (MY-SITE <> SOME-SPAM-SITE). You may accept or decline this link request by clicking the link below, logging into your account, and clicking the 'monitor link exchanges' link."
They are pretty annoying.
This is because I signed up and added some of the sites I develop in that process to my profile. I am not a spammer, and neither are some of the members. I have actually gotten a few decent requests -- a few. But I'd venture to say that most of the requests are spammers trying to exchange worthless links with non-savvy web masters who have high-quality web sites.
If you examine the sites, they, with few exceptions, use the same linkfarm-like directory thing. Who do these people think they're kidding? I won't criticize someone for having sites like that, but do not expect a link in return from me.
I have yet to see more than a few link exchange requests delivered by LinkMetro that are worth implementing. I am actually considering deleting my account because I fear that getting these useless links can actually hurt me.
This happens because the LinkMetro protocol is that people who want to receive a reciprocal link must link to the "requestee" first. This results in further dilution of links and 500 page spam directories. Anyone who is sane would not accept these link exchange requests, so the directories keep growing.
So if you want free worthless links, join LinkMetro!
Honestly, I think LinkMetro (and 2-way links in moderation) can work, but they have to police for some of the spam. Right now, it is out of control.
August 11th, 2006 at 2:40 am
This is very interesting.. I'm launching my website, link-exchangers.com Take a close look! It's a clone of Linkmetro, the only one like it on the internet. It has some functionality that linkmetro doesn't have including the ability to restore all your links and categories should your database ever become corrupted or should you delete an html page, etc.
My site has just been completed after 3 months of programming and debugging. I'm offering a FULL 1 Year memebership at NO CHARGE to those people who are serious about linking, and are willing to sign up and hang around for a month or two while I get enough sites in there. ($240 value) I'm not sure what you mean about spam. You have the option of accepting or rejecting the link request.
Let me know if you're interested in switching over. Certainly within a years time you'll have gotten hundreds of links.
Scot
August 30th, 2006 at 12:38 pm
[...] That said, many SEOs are still a bit DMOZ-obsessed. Even if the pages themselves drive zero traffic, the links, for reasons I do not entirely understand still do carry a disproportionate amount of link-equity. Personally, I think this trend of their importance is downward. The directory pages themselves have large amounts of outgoing links, sparse copy, and look a lot like, well, directory pages. I doubt LinkMetro links carry much weight, either. Regardless, here are my thoughts: [...]
September 12th, 2006 at 5:33 pm
I have been trying to get higher up in Google organically and see that others have using LinkMetro. Namely another local site www dot myburlington dot net is at the top if you search for "Burlington Ontario". I figured out because they use the LinkMetro. I am tempted to do the same but I want quality, real links to my site from relevant referrers not from Work at Home, Quit Smoking, Lemon Aid, blah blah blah. It's unfortunate that doing the right thing is not always the right thing to do and I may be forced to play the same game. Is there a way to report these poor quality sites to the search engines? Would they do anything to address them directly?
October 23rd, 2006 at 5:45 pm
Anyone that does business with someone that admits to "directly cloning" another website is just as dishonest as the owner of the website himself. I would be ashamed of yourself Scot. I hope you get what's coming to you.
November 14th, 2006 at 10:35 am
I am in a similar position to the opener of this string. I set up Linkmetro for a small number of sites and I evaluate every site before exchanging a link - most of which are horrible. If you fail to reciprocate some will remove their link to you, which seems to be the only way to control the risk of having poor links.
Whilst I recognise that there is such a thing as a "good" link, Linkmetro will say, that there is no such thing as a "bad" link - all links help. Is there any validity in this view?
The fact is even when you seek out good quality sites linking to your competitors, most will request a reciprocal link, so doesn't this conflict with the view that Google no longer values reciprocal links?
November 14th, 2006 at 10:52 am
There _is_ a such thing as a bad link
LinkMetro certainly won't _help_ you IMO.
And Google still values a reciprocal link with 2 stipulations:
1. They're worth less than a 1-way link in general.
2. If you have too many of them, it's likely a red flag.
Don't hesitate to exchange a few reciprocal links naturally, or even sneakily -- but only if it's worth it.
November 23rd, 2006 at 1:45 pm
Link-Exchangers doesnt work.
Would love to know if there are better link exchange sites than link metro. I get no replies from they various sites that I link to and my site is actually quite good.
December 13th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
I was intrique by the original post that linkmetro stinks. I am building my first web site and am still learning the ins and outs of the web marketing. I am seriously contemplating to use linkmetro but the article above made me thinking. Can you recommend a better alternative?
February 26th, 2007 at 2:18 pm
Your point of view is so off I am not even going to bother trying to help you. You call yourself an SEO person? lol
April 17th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
Yes, LinkMetro sucks. Although it had a good start and I used it for some of my websites, LinkMetro has some drawbacks that allow SEO professionals to trick non-savvy web masters. One of the most common practices used by the LinkMetro spammers is not linking to their link pages. This way Google won’t be able to index the reciprocal links and the spammers will actually get one-way links from their partners.
There are other ways to trick LinkMetro but I’m not going to post them here.
I think link exchange its good and it can improve your ranking if it’s done right.
That is why I started working on a link exchange site. It is a tool for those who would prefer manual link exchange and are very selective about who they link to. Although links are manually exchanged there are fully automatic systems to ensure that no member is cheating.
The site is currently in beta and I’m doing the final touches. Who is interested and wants to try the link exchange service can register for free, NO COST, NO reciprocal link required.
I intend to maintain this site as a free resource for the community.
The site is TedallSearch.com
June 3rd, 2007 at 8:13 am
I have been using LinkMetro Pro for over a year and my site is in the top 5 on Google against 640 million other results for my keyword.
Of course it has its problems, just like any software, but I always check out each site I link with to find where my link would be and make sure that I can reach the link from the other sites home page. That is fundamental common sense. I also check the PR of sites requesting a link, and never give one to a PR 0 site - they should write a few articls to get some PR before expecting links from others.
I think LinkMetro is the best software of its type and very useful for reciprocal linking with selected websites. All links, reciprocal or not, are valuable and in any case I get a lot of organic traffic to my website from my links directory.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:01 pm
I think link metro is brilliant. But like most good things there are people that will try and abuse it.
Reciprocal links are ok by google and the other SE's but not as good as 1 way links.
If you think too may people linking to you can intentionally harm your site then you plainly don't know what you are talking about and perhaps should not have posted this if you are that naive.