With all due respect, Dom, exchanging links with members isn’t always easy.
Sure, if you have a PR 6 or higher page, people are all over you for a link, but otherwise ………… it’s hard to break into the old boys network.
And – a webmaster who is new to the business doesn’t know the rest of the webmasters from a hole in the ground. So what is a new webbie do?
I sat here for months with a PR5, and waited for that PR 6 to arrive, diligently linking, and google’s decided I’m a 4 in their update!! grrrr.
Well, I give up. I get great SERPs, and that’s what is important.
I’m tired of playing the link game. The whole purpose of making a website was to put some quality content on it, to make a site worth visiting – but linking is distracting and total bullshit if it’s only to bluff google into thinking you’re important.
I’ll link to sites I think my visitors would benefit from – such as wizardofodds, etc., and maybe someday my site will have a high enough quality that people will link to me for the same reason! (and it might just happen, since I won’t be wasting time with the link reciprocation I’ll actually have time to put unique content up)