Search Engine Optimization Using Three Way Links

Writing by Nick Stamoulis on Tuesday, 13 of May , 2008 at 6:49 am

Reciprocal links are, for some search engine optimization experts, still in the too hard basket when it comes to their effect on your rankings. Some believe it helps, if only a little while others believe they hurt and are at best, ignored and at worst, penalized by search engines. So what about three way links?

Three way links are not new, in fact they have been around for almost as long search engine optimization strategies. Whichever way you look at them, three way links are still reciprocal links and if search engines such as Google look down on them, then you can bet they know when you are using them.

A thread on Webmasterworld recently discussed the use of three way links and the responses were quite varied. One particular response appealed to me and is probably closer to my thoughts than many of the others:

Google most probably considers a certain percentage of straightforward reciprocals in your linking profile as part of a natural pattern… and good quality reciprocals, if they’re appropriate for the user and not excessive, will probably help you.

But Google is also big on “intent,” and is less tolerant about obvious attempts to game the algo. That’s what triangular links are. It would be hard to look at them any other way.

Intent is the real key when it comes to links, linking and search engine optimization. There are going to be times when it is mutually beneficial for two sites to exchange links. Certain websites will naturally complement each other, for example, a paint supply website and a paint brush website. It would be natural for these two sites to link to each other.

Triangular links would not necessarily complement each other. I am sure if I thought hard enough I could find an example, but they would be few and far between. Using triangular links as part of your search engine optimization strategy will generally be seen as an attempt to game the system.

If the search engines cannot currently detect them, it wont be long and they will. Rather than trying to work the system, you are far better off building links where they naturally occur and putting all your search engine optimization efforts into gaining one way links.

Category: Link Building, SEO

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