Reciprocal Links: What's Excessive Anyway?
By Jason Lee Miller

Many assume that reciprocal links are black hat, but that's not necessarily the case because often they are legitimate and can bolster relevance. But nobody's been exactly sure of Google's policy regarding them, and the topic has caused much debate.

Recently, as noted at the WebmasterWorld forum, Google updated the language at the Webmaster Help Center, under the "Link schemes" topic. One word was enough to fire up the debate again: excessive.

The very phrase "link scheme" connotes something not quite on the level, and as an example, Google files reciprocal links this way:

Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging ("Link to me and I'll link to you.")

But the word "excessive" doesn't exactly carry an exact number and for good reason. It seems to be judged on a case by case basis.

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