Linking to good quality sites provides a valuable resource to your visitors, which means they will be more likely to bookmark and return to your site.
Linking to good quality on-topic websites probably has a good effect on your rankings in the search engines.
Linking to crappy sites just because they give you a link back accomplishes neither of the above.
If you link to great websites that are really good for your users, then you’re gaining, not losing. If they link back, then great, but if they don’t, you still get the benefits above. And you have the added benefit of never having to check to see if your link trade partners are still linking to you.
I NEVER spend time “checking up” on my link partners. There are way too many valuable uses of my time. And my sites do fine in the search engines.
@cat 131873 wrote:
Besides if they link not back no more I am giving and getting nothing back.
That’s not ok.