It pays to be careful when you decide to link with a site. Choosing the wrong Website will diminish your credibility and could result in being penalized by the search engines. Sticking to relevant sites that you have personally reviewed is the recommended way of building your Website traffic and search engine ranking.

Everyone who has a Website and seeks to establish cross-links is solicited by a variety of sites, some good and some bad. It helps to establish the criteria for the sites with which you will consider linking before engaging in this activity. If your goal is to drive qualified traffic to your Website and to enhance your appeal to search engines, then you must be selective about the sites with which you exchange links.

Only trade links with complementary sites whose products or services are relevant to your offerings. A real estate site that cross-links to a casino site, for example, is not acting in the best interest of its visitors. It may even be penalized by search engines such as Google for attempting to build ranking with irrelevant cross-links. Ideally, the site linking to your Website should attract a clientele that would also be interested in what you offer. Thus, anyone who clicks on your link is pre-qualified and is more likely to purchase something from you.

Search engines have gotten smarter. They can distinguish between relevant links and those that represent