Link Exchanges — How Effective Are They?

Link exchanges can be a good solution if you use all their advantages wisely. 

Exchanges are actively used by specialists and website owners in Ukraine, but they can also be effective for English-language projects oriented to the West: the English-language Internet is more competitive than the Ukrainian one, and it is much more difficult to get organic links in the English-language information space.

In this article, we will explain in detail what link exchanges are for, what results can be achieved with link exchanges, how they can facilitate website promotion, and why, despite their effectiveness, they should be used with caution.

What are link exchanges?

Link exchanges are platforms where website owners can buy or sell links to their resources to increase search rankings and traffic.

How link exchanges work:

• a user who wants to buy a link registers on the exchange, searches for sites where he wants to place a link, and sends a request to the exchange;
• the exchange checks the request and, if it meets the rules, sends the request to the user who sells the link;
• if the seller accepts the request, the link is posted on the website;
• payment for links goes through the exchange, and therefore it can take a commission for selling links.

There are two main types of exchanges:

• Perpetual link exchanges, where links are placed forever. They are the most common and effective;
• exchanges of temporary links that are placed for a certain period of time.

Exchanges also offer different types of links, the most common of which are:

• links contained in articles (an article can be written by the customer or ordered from a contractor, it is also possible to add a link to an article already published on the website);
• graphic links, where either the image itself or the caption to it links to your website.

The benefits of using link exchanges are obvious: you save time on outreach and get guaranteed placement exactly where you want it.

Exchanges can be especially useful for promoting large projects where it is important to build up a high-quality link building capacity efficiently and quickly.

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The most famous link exchanges

The range of link exchanges is quite wide. In Ukraine, the most competitive and well-known are:

1. Collaborator

Collaborator — is one of the most popular and reliable link exchanges on the market. It offers a wide range of platforms for posting links in various formats: articles, press releases, reviews, comments, etc. You can choose sites by various parameters: topic, traffic, indexing, domain authority, and others. Collaborator also allows you to order unique content for link building or use your own content. In addition, you can track the effectiveness of your links using built-in analytics and receive reports on the work done.

2. Links-Stream

Links-Stream – is a marketplace that offers all types of links: from crawl and guest posts to PBN and Link Insertion.

An interesting feature of the platform is Outside Links, which allows you to buy guest posts from all exchanges. At the same time, you can bypass additional fees that are present on the most popular exchanges (commission for replenishing your account, payment system commission, etc.).

For example, you have found a website on one of the well-known exchanges for $300, but to deposit this amount into your account, you need to spend $345 (since there is a platform commission and a payment system commission).

In Links-Stream, you just need to specify the site you are interested in, its price ($300), the platform on which it was found, and pay this amount. And the team will buy it for you and pull it into your personal account

No deposit or payment fees - you pay only for the website itself.

Customer service is worth a separate mention. Regular customers receive a loyalty card that gives them access to discounts - from cafes and restaurants to gas stations and even dentists

And thanks to the ecosystem of affiliate services, customers can receive referral payments from their own monthly expenses. By registering in popular services through affiliate links (for example, CRM, hosting, or SEO tools), you receive all commissions that usually go to the platform to your bonus account.

In fact, you partially pay for the link by using the tools you need to work.

2. Prposting

Prposting — is another high-quality and convenient link exchange that specializes in placing articles with links on various websites. Prposting has a large database of sites that are suitable for different topics and budgets. You can filter sites by various criteria: region, language, price, trust, and others. Prposting also offers the service of writing unique articles based on your keywords or titles or the ability to upload your ready-made texts. You can control the process of posting articles and receive reports on the results.

3. Prnews.io

Prnews.io — is a service for posting press releases with links on various news sites. Prnews.io can help you increase your brand awareness, attract new customers and improve your search engine rankings. Prnews.io has access to more than 25,000 news resources around the world, which can be selected by country, language, topic, and price. You can have a press release written to your specifications or upload your own text. Prnews.io also provides you with statistics on views, shares, and social signals of your

Pros and cons of using link exchanges

There are pros and cons to using link exchanges, and it's important to weigh them when figuring out what a link exchange is and how it will fit your needs.

Plusi: 

• fast effectiveness - links from exchanges will quickly raise the ranking of a website in search results. And this is one of the key advantages of such exchanges. After all, links from authoritative resources significantly improve the position of your website;
• scalability - with the help of link exchanges, you can easily increase the number of links to your website;
• attracting the target audience - link exchanges often provide an opportunity to choose partners by target audience. This attracts visitors who are really interested in your content or products;
• Increased authority - by getting links from ranking sources, your website can gain more trust from users and search engines;
• ease of use - most link exchanges have a simple and intuitive interface;
• Saving time - using link exchanges will significantly save time and effort in finding and contacting partners.

Disadvantages of link exchanges:

• the risk of getting low-quality links - exchanges often offer links from unreliable and low-rated sites. Such links can even harm your rankings;
• Sanctions from search engines - if you violate the rules of search engines by trying to get a lot of fast links through the exchange, this will lead to sanctions or a decrease in the site's ranking;
• Costs - buying links from exchanges can be expensive, especially for beginners;

• Dependence on others - using link exchanges makes you dependent on partners, which means certain risks if they are unreliable or change their strategies.

What to do:

Order turnkey link building

Mandatory parameters that donors from exchanges must meet

When choosing donors from exchanges, especially when your priorities are to promote foreign websites, it is important to pay attention to a number of mandatory parameters that determine the quality of donors:

1. Content quality: make sure that the content on the donor site is of high quality and relevant to your project.
2. Relevance: links should be relevant to your website. For example, if you are promoting an English-language website about technology, links from a culinary website will not be as effective.
3. Geography: If your project has a geographically limited audience, choose donors who also have a clear geography.
4. Page indexing: make sure that the donor's pages are indexed by search engines. Otherwise, there is a high risk that your article will remain unindexed.
5. Ranking and traffic indicators: when selecting donors, experts also focus on specific numerical indicators, such as the volume of monthly organic traffic. Additionally, tools such as Ahrefs can be used for evaluation, which can help you find out the DR (domain ranking) of a donor. It's up to you to decide which numbers are acceptable.

You can contact our SEO agency for help if you don't want to select donors or doubt that you can do it correctly. We know exactly what a website looks like that is suitable for placement and what is not suitable for placement.

Conclusions

Use exchanges only with a good reputation, and carefully study the parameters of the donors before buying links. Don't buy too many links in a short time, as you risk being penalized by Google for artificially boosting popularity and losing your rankings. Track the results and adjust your strategy if necessary. After all, tracking links bought on the exchange is an important part of SEO (search engine optimization). This way you can make sure that the links add weight to your website and do not harm it. 

Link exchanges are an effective tool for website promotion if you use them responsibly and choose high-quality donors.