Modern Link Building; One Way Links
Back in the old days of seo (about 2-5 years ago) the best way to move up the rankings was with reciprocal link exchange. This method was simple as all you had to do is find a site that's actively exchanging links, add a link to them on your site, email them asking for one back, and wait for them to do so. This way, both sites have a link, everyone's happy.
However Google since Google clocked on to this, it has slowly been downgrading the worth of these reciprocal links and this is because the search engines are looking for pure, natural links.
If they detect a reciprocal link, they quite rightly assume that there has been a deal made between these sites to try and make themselves rank higher, which of course, isn't natural.
Google in particular, once imagined an Internet where the owner of site A might find site B and be so impressed that he would add a link on site A pointing to site B. For example, imagine a Plumber and his family from Yorkshire takes a holiday in Dorset one summer. They stay at a lovely little family run hotel and make good friends with the owners. On their return home they add a link to the hotel onto their Plumbing website recommending anyone who ever finds themselves in Dorset to stay at the hotel.
Of course this is not how the search rankings developed because SEO experts began to appear and manipulated the algorithm. To start with reciprocal links worked well and were all round easy to get and set up, and easy to keep track of and manage.
Over time though, one way links have taken over and become far more powerful. Bearing in mind that you can only add a limited quantity of links in a given month, adding only reciprocal links will mean that it takes you over three times longer to achieve your desired rankings, if indeed you achieve them at all.
One way links are harder to initiate than reciprocals and are harder to manage and track, but they will get your site ranked higher in the shortest time possible. There has been talk of reciprocal links being downgraded to zero value, but I do not believe this will happen because there are large companies with suppliers and partners that they will want to exchange reciprocal links with and they should not be penalised simply for having business partners.
If you want to build high quality Google friendly one way links to your site, click submit site or submit url