A link exchange on the Internet is like being allowed to leave an advertisement for your home based dog grooming business at your vet’s office. It works, it results in visitors, and visitors more often than not turn into clients or customers. Yet nor every link exchange is created equal, and as with anything on the ‘Net, there are good ways to go about it and those bad ways that will decidedly not only be unsuccessful but furthermore quite possibly harm your standing with the major search engines.

Consider for example the automatic link exchange that is hosted by an agency that charges a fee for helping you find other websites who are also looking to exchange links. You know that in the past Google paid a lot of attention to how many other sites were linked to yours and you figure you are home free, but are you right? The answer is a resounding no. This kind of link exchange will probably do you more damage than it will do you good, especially considering that the major search engines will drop your popularity by a few notches if you are linked to sites that have little if anything to do with your site’s content.

This kind of link exchange will not only hurt you, but it will set you back some money. It is more useful to engage in a free link exchange. Such a reciprocal link exchange could take place between the website of the home based dog grooming business and the website of the veterinarian. Of course, a real estate link exchange will work great with a realtor link exchange. The agency and the independent agent can swap links and all is well in this kind of link exchange.

To find sites that will exchange links you can either subscribe to a link exchange network – for a fee – or purchase some link exchange software. If you have some time on your hands and you are dealing with a niche site, you can manually find sites that might work for you, such as a poker link exchange or a pagan link exchange. If all else fails, a search for your kind of website and the term link exchange might work; in your search window it would look something like this: “accommodation + link exchange” or “travel accommodation + link exchange” if you do not get enough quality hits. Other opportunities arise on a link exchange forum or on sites that contain link exchange surveys which are sometimes posted by the site’s employees.