Link to competitors

Hi,
I have a website / web service named Chikaboo.com From surfing the Internet I have found that I have at least two "competitors". My new Idea is to contact these competitors and offer them that I will link to them if there link to me - it will increase traffic on all the websites.

Do YOU think this a good idea:?:

Kind regards
Chikaboo
http://www.chikaboo.com

If your site is better than all of theirs i'd say it was a great idea. But if they have more content then you might end up loosing visitors.

How similar are the sites? If their content focuses on a different area than yours than go for it. Links to each other would benifit your visitors.

If the sites have almost identical content, don't bother. Like RyTRiX said you might end up loosing visitors.

It's like the Ditech commercials

A hand written request that is obviously not a stock email might get you a response at least. In other words, if you do write to them, make references to things you have seen on their sites so they know you looked at it. Then see if they already have a link exchange set up. If not be detailed on how it could benefit them as well as you. I know all of my clients are very particular about who they exchange links with, and in most cases they don't. So don't be dissapointed if you do try and the response is negative. But you'll never know unless you try.

But the other advice given is well taken. Make sure the content is good or else you could fall in rankings.

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Side note* This topic is more appropriate for the general search engine category, so I'm moving it there.

Are you assuming that trading links will boost your search engine results too? Or is your motivation to share visitors?

In the first case, you would most likely benefit from a slight improvement in rankings and resulting search engine traffic. In the second case, I personally wouldn't trade a link with my competitor unless your sites cater to different types of visitors or offer features unique to one-another.

You could always come up with a sharing contract, where you pay your competitors per visitor and vice-versa --- that way the person sending the most traffic to the others will also get something in return, and everyone will benefit from a circulation of visitors.

if its direct competition - in a nutshell. if your site is "better" they probably wont want to link to yours because they might loose customers. and if their site is "better" they probably wont want to link to you because you may look like some small time site. and linking to you may have negative effects on their image.

otherwise if its not direct competition and you can show them how they could benefit from exchanging links, i can't see why they wouldn't.

I would only link to someone if they were in the same area of as me, I would never trade links with a direct competitor. Thats just my opinion. But, if it is going to help you, the worst thing they can say is no.

To increase traffic, I would just go through the many steps listed in this forum to do so.

Yeah, exactly... If you're a computer games retailer, for example, you don't link with other computer games retailers... you link with popular fansites for specific games, or with sites related to gaming on a specific platform (Xbox, etc.), but not other people selling all the same products & services as yourself.

Trading links with compeditors might increase your PR, but remember that there is more to a website than PR. Your visitors might see a link to your compeditor and find out that he likes your compeditor better than you.

Exactly... Linking to competitors only helps you with the search engines (related content).. But it doesn't matter if you come up #1 on the search results for every game ever released if the human visitors go to your site, see a link to a competitor selling everything you do for 20% less.

Yes, PR isn't everything. This is true for more than linking to competitors, too! I've heard of sites that payed $$$ to a SEO pro to get their site #1 on Google, but their site was so full of keywords that it was almost non-functional.

Remember: PR isn't everything. Keep it in perspective... PR helps your site to generate more sales, so don't sacrifice sales for PR.

Linking to direct competitors is not a good idea.

There are many sites on the internet which really helps you in getting good link partners.

Try the following sites:
1. http://www.linksmanager.com
2. http://www.linkpartners.com
3. http://www.linkmarket.com

Or else you may outsource this to a company like: Cyberax Tech for doing the hard work for you.

Regards,

Reciprocal links are OK, but they remain reciprocal ! The best way is triangular linking at the least.

As long your products are related - its usually your competitors isnt it? so i thought it would be fine? Btw, If i have link of the exchanging partner but they did not add mine yet. And i thought if i removed it, they wil not be able to see it and thus, wouldnt add me. My question is, adding external link but not getting Link back, would it affect my rank toO?