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Three Way Linking: How They Work, What They Can Offer, And Why You Should Think Twice Before Using Them If you’ve had a website or blog for some time you know that in order to rank well in search engines your site needs quality one way back links pointing to it. Most of us know about link exchanges, link farms, reciprocal links and so on. While some of these are good and others you should avoid (link farms for example) one you might not have heard of is 3 way linking.
How Does Three Way Linking Work?
Unlike the traditional reciprocal link building methods where two sites link to each other (Site A and site B link to each other), 3 way linking gives each site a one way back link. To do this you first need three websites to participate, of course if you and another webmaster have multiple sites this eliminates that problem. You want to have links from sites with similar content, for example if your website is about computer games you probably don’t want to do a three way link exchange with a website that deals with bow hunting in Alaska. On top of that Google tends to get a little suspicious when sites are linked together are unrelated, not to mention people looking for bow hunting probably aren’t going to be interested in a website about computer games or vice versa.
To make a three way link exchange work, first site A will link to site B. Site B will then link to site C which then links up to site A. At no time do any two sites involved link directly to each other. The result is that each site gets what appears to be a one way link pointing back at it.
What Are The Advantages Of 3 Way Linking?
While there is nothing wrong with having reciprocal links to your website, these kinds of links don’t have the same power that they used to. Because 3 way linking provides each site with a one way back link, Google and the other search engines will place a higher value on those links, especially if those links are from sites that have a higher Google Page Rank then your site.
Why You Want To Think Twice About Three Way Link Exchanges
So your probably thinking at this point how can a three way link exchange be a bad thing, all sites involved get one way back links, that can’t be a bad thing right?
Unfortunately 3 way linking can be a bad thing for your site, because it’s an increasingly popular trick that can be used to cheat search engine rankings. To Google these types of linking strategies are usually perceived as nothing more then an attempt to manipulate page rankings.
Those who use 3 way links to cheat the system do so in a couple of different ways.
1. They have a website they want to promote so they buy a bunch of domain names and build websites for each of them. (A lot of the time these sites look very familiar to each other and have almost identical content) Then they create one way links from these sites to the one they want to promote to try to trick Google and other search engines from thinking these are all links from supposedly independent sites.
This isn’t to say you can’t create multiple sites, just not 10 or 20 websites that are basically carbon copies of your main site that look almost identical and have pretty much identical content.
2. They approach another website owner (usually through email) and ask to exchange links. Only instead of the usually you link to my site and I’ll link to yours they make an offer like this “If you link to site A I’ll give you links from sites B,C, and D” it sounds pretty good at first considering that their offering 3 links for just one to theirs. What’s really going on though is that this person is trying to create links to site A without putting up any reciprocal from that site in return. Their trying to trick the search engines that their site is more important and popular that what it really is. It also means you could have links from 3 sites that are basically garbage sites and won’t help you get better search engine ranking.
Another big factor to consider is that if these sites aren’t connected to their primary site and are only being used to benefit that main site, it doesn’t really hurt them if those sites are banned. Their legitimate site will still get the benefits from having your site link to it while you get nothing in return. This allows then to aggressively promote their site while giving it some protection from any negative effects. Though it is important to remember that Google is getting better at sniffing these tricks out.
This isn’t to say that you should rule out 3 way linking entirely, it can be done legitimately you just have to watch who your trading links with. Always investigate any site that wants to link with you, you should be doing this regardless of what kind of link exchange is being offered to avoid linking to bad neighbourhood sites. You also need to be wary of the types of sites that want to link to yours. At the end of the day go with your instincts, if it seems too good to be true it probably is.
Other posts to check out
- Offline SEO Tricks
- 10 Reasons Why Your Website Sucks
- Google SEO Tools
- What To Consider To Get Listed On DMOZ
- How To Make A Link Wheel
- Offline SEO Tricks
- 10 Reasons Why Your Website Sucks
- Google SEO Tools
- What To Consider To Get Listed On DMOZ
- How To Make A Link Wheel
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