In all my years in this business I’ve never understood the demand for a prominently positioned graphic banner reciprocal link. In return, what does the poor webmaster get? Oh lucky me! I get a text link buried in the bowels of an ever-growing archive of text links.

I don’t have a problem with giving a site premium promotion while my site is listed on their new list. During that week or two the playing field is level. However, once my link has dropped off the new listing there is no good reason for the links page getting top bill. I should be allowed to push that reciprocal link down and bury it in equal fashion.

There is absolutely no justification for requiring a banner in a reciprocal link. I don’t get a banner, unless I pay for it! So what makes these links and webmaster resource sites think they are justified in demanding that level of advertising?

These sites would argue that the high page rank they get helps the page rank of sites they link to, so it’s a fair trade. BULL! Last time I checked Google doesn’t give a rat’s ass if the link is with a graphic banner. If anything, a text link scores higher. And the only reason these sites have a good page rank is because all the webmasters are linking to them. They would still get that same page rank if all the webmasters used a text link on a page one level down. But without all these reciprocal links they’d be as significant as a pimple on Google’s ass!

I wonder what would happen if every site listed at Cozy Frog suddenly pulled their reciprocal link. Do you think maybe they would revisit their policy requiring a prominently position banner ad?

DO THE MATH

At Cozy Frog I can get a featured listing, in the links category relevant to my service, for the rock bottom price of $275.00 a month. That’s $3,300.00 a year! InGayPorn.com would fall under the Cozy category “Other Services”. WOW…I bet that gets a lot of page views! On the other hand, I can get a basic text listing, in the same category, if I put their 120×60 on my home page. Actually, I think they still get a banner on my home page if I shell out $3,300.00 a year.

Now I could be wrong here, but what do you bet InGayPorn.com averages more uniques to the home page than they ever get on a page one level down titled “Other Services”? Actually, the best category for InGayPorn.com would be “Resources”, but all the ad slots there are taken. And its not lost on me that the “Resources” page gets better exposure.

I’m not trying to pick on Cozy Frog. It’s just convenient that Cozy Frog offers a good example of the value they place on a 120×60, regardless of how much exposure it gets. Yet the amount of exposure you give them is irrelevant. They are still going to want a banner ad, and they are still going to give you the same level of exposure as everyone else in the listing. It’s just one example of how a lot of linking sites operate — a whole lot of take and very little give.

These sites could not exist without the webmasters, but for some reason they have all the webmasters thinking it’s the other way around.