Shortcomings of the automated link exchange system (linkators)

Automated link exchange systems ("linkators") attract sites with promises of fast and free (or inexpensive) promotion. Unfortunately they don't tell you about the risks that carry participating sites usually not knowing about it. This risk is a serious one - exclusion of a site from the search engine, which can lead to a temporary loss of new visitors from the given search engine.

The thing is that the "linkators" directly break the rules established by search engines.

The search engines are very negative towards purchases and sales of links, because they consider it an attempt to manipulate their results to improve sites' ratings.

There were numerous cases of search engines "dumping" (decreasing ratings) or banning of sites exchanging links, and sites selling links on main pages.

On the other hand, unless you increase the number of links to a site you cannot have high search engine ratings, because this position is mostly determined now by "link ranking": the highest rating on requests will be attributed to a page that has direct links from the greater number of top ranking sites on the same request.

Our goal was to create such advertising system that would also lead to an improvement of ranks in the search engines without expressly violating their rules.

- The system's ads cannot be called "search spam" - they look like ads of pay-per-click advertising system with just one difference - they contain a direct link to the advertiser's site without the redirect to count the number of clicks.
- Ads are located in noticeable areas of the sites and their subject is close to the site's content - they are useful for the visitor and are not meant only for search bots (and visitors really do click on them often!)
- We don't turn sites into trashcans of monotonous automatically generated exchange catalogues of links or put a number of almost invisible links at the very bottom of pages (such links are definitely meant for search bots). We always place only one or two-three (on webmaster's discretion) links on each page, and only on quality pages (the system selects them itself).
- Out system can be used not as a link exchange system, but as a source of income for webmasters.
- Direct link exchange does not exist in our system.
- due to safety concerns we do not have a public list of participating sites.

It is practically impossible to find out if a site is participating in our system, because we use ads with simple direct links. The only way for a moderator to try to find that out would be to make a site for himself that suits the parameters set for participation in the system and put links on sites of his subject. This way after some time he will be able to find some sites that participate in the system through back links, but that doesn't mean that these sites participate in the automated link exchange system - many of the participants do not exchange links, but purchase ads in the system for money. And the search system doesn't have the right to prohibit selling ads on your own site. I.e. there is no point of doing that for a moderator.

We are not aware of a single case when participation in our system would do any harm to any of our partners. But we know that it's a common thing for participants of link exchanges and link trading systems, because their links are often very much like "search spam", and it's not difficult for search engines to find that out.

Many link exchange systems offer to buy links on participants' sites without putting any links on the advertiser's site. Unfortunately case of "dumping" when buying links from linkator occur more and more often. The initial improvement of rank is often followed by a sharp decline and as a result the advertiser's sites turns out to be even worse off than before using a linkator. This is because search engines use filters against a rapid increase in the number of similar links from low quality (with low rank or with a large number of external links) pages. Because of this the use of linkators is a dangerous and unfavorable way to promote a site.. In some cases purchase of links from a linkator can produce positive results, but for this you need great experience to make sure you don't do any harm (which is a more common outcome)...

Please, check detailed information about abilities of our system, with advantages of our system for advertisers and advantages for webmasters.

Please, before you decide to participate read the FAQ for advertisers and for webmasters.