Norhafidz asks:
what’s your opinion about three way link? I notice it has become popular now in webmaster forums where forumers asking for 3-way links exchange.
My answer:
Actually, I’ve read an SEO e-book telling people to stay away from this practice or you might get penalized. But, I don’t think there is something wrong with this as long as you are exchanging links from related sites. I actually prefer doing 3-way link exchanges than a simple reciprocal links. With 3-way link exchange, you get a one-way link in exchange for a link back to his other site.
Google is finding it hard tracking paid links that they have to sort to encouraging people to report to them sites that sell links. It will be harder for them to track 3 way link exchanges because 3 way links occur naturally, even if people don’t do it purposely.
For example, I found a certain blog and liked it, I put it on my blog roll. Then, this blog found my text messages blog useful to him and link to it on his blog. I did not ask for it. But it looks like we did a 3-way link exchange, isn’t it?
Here’s a real world example. I found Cellphone9 blog useful and link to it on one of my blogs. Cellphone9 found my text messages blog and link to it on his blog. We did not talk about it. We did not exchange links. But it looks like we did a 3-way link exchange, right?
So, how can Google know which is 3 way link exchange done purposely and should be penalized and which one occured naturally? That’s too hard to tell. Penalizing all occurences of 3 way link exchanges seems illogical.
So, is it ok to make 3 way link exchanges. In my opinion, yes. Just make sure you know where your links are being exchanged to. If they are simply from blogs to blogs with the same niche as yours, I don’t see any harm on it.