In essence, reciprocal links present a conflicting topic. This is because those who were there for reciprocal links have backed out claiming that they are valueless, while the SEM’s that were against it are still adamant. Others hold the notion that something magical happens and it turns the reciprocal links a bad thing in the search engines.
In my view, it is impossible to have an absolute and thus hard to define the rules of reciprocity flawlessly. For instance, going beyond 33% reciprocity in an inbound profile is out of course and incorrect. This is because if you have a high reciprocity percentage, the search engines will not trust your site and this may cause them to devalue your links. The fact behind this is simple. If you have a high percentage, it means the links are questionable because it might be a deal with another site to have it link yours and you theirs. This is not acceptable though it happens in all types of sites.
The link reciprocity percentage might be rightfully high for some subjects. This is more so if your site deals with a particular niche because you will get links from other sites that have the same content. For instance, an organization like the Southeastern Bat Diversity Network that aims at bats conservation in Southeastern North America by conducting research, education and management. Looking at other top sites in this field proves something. They all link back to each other and it is sort of a web. This is one thing that people should understand about reciprocity links percentages. It is impossible to set a number that a site should not go beyond. This is because it works differently from one subject to the other. In the case of the bats conservation sites, they use the reciprocity links to enhance the work they do. For instance, other sites in this field include BasicallyBats.org, Batcon.org, Bat Research News and the North American Symposium on Bat Research (NASBR). The reciprocity linking percentage increases amongst the top sites in this and it hits 100% in the top three sites. However, these sites do not do this in a bid to dupe the search engines. Their purpose is genuine because they want users to go through several sites of the same material in order to increase the information provided and the feedback in line with the aim of these organizations in the society.
In other topics that have a broad scope, a reciprocity percentage that hits 80% is questionable. For instance, in a topic like NFL jerseys, where sites compete to get higher rankings, linking back and forth would be out of the question. It would shine the search engine spotlight on those sites because they aim would be to increase their rankings. That defines a link network or a link spam. It would not be odd to find out that all the sites in that spam belong to the same store or person. The difference between this and the bat example is the subject matter, and it makes the use of this technique different.
In conclusion, it is impossible to set an absolute where reciprocity links are concerned because there is more to it than just linking sites back and forth.
