Reciprocal Links Or One Way Links?

[dignan99]

After reading a recent blog post on guest blogging and ways to build relationships for link building purposes, I began to wonder about something.

It is my understanding that one way backlinks are superior to reciprocal linkage, but reciprocal is better than no link at all.

So is it still worthwhile to do reciprocal guest blogging, and will the value of the links be worth it when completed?

Or should we just be of the opinion that:

One Way Link > Reciprocal > No link

[EGOL]

I believe that if Website A links to Website B and at the same time Website B links to Website A that the links can still be valuable.  Great websites link to other great websites all of the time.  I don't think that Google will discriminate against those links unless.......

A) the websites are entirely unrelated to one another (about very different topics

B) the links are in a dumb location such as on a "link exchange" page or footer

C) the links are highly optimized anchor text

So, as long as the links are placed in a context that is valuable for the visitor these links still have a chance to carry value.

As for guest blog posting... if you have a local history site in the United States and guest blog on a site about hydraulic jacks in Germany then I think you are wasting your time.  But if both of these sites are about the local history of the same area then, in my opinion, these webmasters could very legitimately be colleagues who refer to each others work and enthusiastically share ideas with one another's visitors.