... about link exchanges. 

I have been barraged with requests from people who want to do link exchanges. Many of them have absolutely nothing to do with my niche. Others are competition??? Others seem good, in that they are in related fields but sufficiently different so that they are not competitive. It was suggested to me way back in my IM career, pre-WA, that link exchanges are a good way to get backlinks. Problem is that they are 2 way links, which I have since learned are not as powerful as 1 way links for ranking, since Google doesn't value them as much. 

Here's a funny story for you. This Christmas, my niece decided to do her Christmas shopping in my site. Unbeknownst to her, I was planning on turning my commissions back to her, thus saving her 10-15% on her shopping.  Alas, ultimately, the plan was foiled. She called me all excited because she placed business in my lap. She was very pleased to support her aunt. Come to find out, she clicked one of the exchange links, and the business went to another site. She thought it was one of my resources. This made me think that if my own brilliant niece could make such an error, then so could visitors to my site. The result? I started taking links out.  Not worth forfeiting  sales for a small advantage. 

Thought I'd share that with you because it's worth considering. Better off spending time getting high ranking one way links. 

Ironically,  I went into my contact page this morning and saw pages of link exchange requests. Hah! No thanks! Would it sometimes work in reverse? Maybe, but who cares?