Now that more emphasis (to get better ranking in SERPs) is put on the quality of links rather than the quantity, I will try, in this article, to identify the signs that may be precursors of bad link exchange transactions.

I try to make sure that my links come from pages with original content that are not sourced from an affiliate program or duplicated hundreds of times on the Internet. I want links from websites that someone seemingly to have taken time and effort to put together. In addition, it is steer clear of ecommerce sites that is only recently launched and heavily SEOed.

Check what the links pages are like. Definitely avoid links pages that have over 50 links, or use dynamic URLs, or are not ind exed by search engines.

Search engine bots are unlikely to go more than three levels deep on any website. So links buried deeper may not be found. When looking for quality links look for websites that provide links as close to the home page as possible. Even a massive site like BBC News has a rule that every piece of content must be available within three clicks of the News home page.

Unless the links page of the site receives a large amount of traffic or that they have a high PageRank, stick to sites about the same topic as your own. If your site is about widgets, I usually look for sites that are about widgets, widgeting, or anything widget-users would find useful.

When I receive link request emails, anything that

I look for glaring typos, English mistakes, excessive fla shy banners, broken images, or the ever infamous animated Under Construction gifs.

I usually look at the source code of the links page to make sure that I will be receiving honest inbound backlinks. Does the site use rel=nofollow or external redirects for their outbound links? If so, they won't benefit you at all (SEO-wise) unless the link gets many human clickthroughs.

Then I'd classify them as a valueable link partner. The same goes to your request emails: always include your name and phone number in order to be trusted.

That's it for me. As you can see, I've only mentioned PageRank once. I believe that as long as a site has quality, it has a good potential (PageRank or otherwise) and is worthy to trade link with. Finally, although these are good criterias to stick to in order to identify good link partners when receiving requests, don't forget to see if you are adhering to these when you are the one sending requests!

Tony Zhu is the owner of an online business resource website, InaWhim.com, the largest free resource for the new and experienced home business owner. At InaWhim.com, you will find massive listings of paid survey companies, products with free resell rights, exclusive quality articles, friendly community, and much more.