Backlink exchange network, opt-in
Backlink exchange: what Google says, and how ours works
A backlink exchange is sites agreeing to link to each other. Google’s spam policies list excessive link exchanges as link spam, so how an exchange runs decides how risky it is. Here is the policy, the risk factors, and exactly how our network works.What a backlink exchange is
Four common shapes, from the most visible to the most structured.
Direct swap
A links to B, B links to A. The oldest and most visible pattern, and the one Google's policy quotes: “Link to me and I’ll link to you.”
Three-way
A links to B, B to C, C to A. No direct pair, so it is harder to spot, but it is still a link arrangement made to pass ranking credit.
Guest post swap
Each site writes an article for the other with a link inside. More work, and safer when the articles are genuinely useful to both audiences.
Credit network
A pool of members. You give links to members and receive links from members, and a ledger keeps the counts even. This is how Bottally's network runs.
Is link exchange bad for SEO?
It can be. Here is Google’s wording, unedited.
Google’s spam policies open the link spam section with this:
“Link spam is the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings.”
Among the examples it lists:
“Excessive link exchanges (‘Link to me and I’ll link to you’) or partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking”
The same list also includes “Using automated programs or services to create links to your site.” An automated exchange network, ours included, sits close to both lines. We would rather you read that here than find it later.
What Google does about it
Mostly, it ignores the links. When Google rolled out its December 2022 link spam update, it said its SpamBrain system “can now detect both sites buying links, and sites used for the purpose of passing outgoing links,” and that “any credit passed by these unnatural links are lost.” The policy page adds that sites that violate it “may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all,” and that human review can lead to a manual action.
Why the word “excessive” matters
Linking to businesses you know is normal. Partners, suppliers and friends link to each other, and an Ahrefs study found reciprocal links on 73.6% of the domains it checked. Google draws the line at exchanges made mainly to rank, at a volume that stops looking like the normal web.
There is one way to take ranking out of the picture: mark the links rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Google’s policy says even paid links are not a violation when they are qualified that way. A qualified link also passes no ranking credit, which is the whole reason anyone joins an exchange. So every followed exchange link carries some risk. The question is how much.
What makes a backlink exchange safer or riskier
Use this to judge any exchange, platform or one-off swap.
| Factor | Safer | Riskier |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | The link helps the reader of that article | Unrelated sites linking because they agreed to |
| Placement | Inside the body of a real article | Link pages, partner pages, footers, sidebars |
| Anchor text | Brand names and natural phrases | The exact keyword you want to rank for, again and again |
| Volume and pace | A few links a week, spread out | Dozens at once, or a sudden spike |
| Pattern | Links from many sites, few of them mutual | The same pairs linking back and forth |
| Partners | Real businesses with real pages | Private blog networks and sites built to sell links |
| Money | No payment for a link | Paid links without rel="sponsored" |
| Share of your links | One source among many | Most of your backlinks coming from swaps |
How the Bottally backlink network works
A credit network inside the articles Bottally already writes for each member. These are the rules it runs on.
- 1
Opt in
Off by default. One switch, offered next to your Domain Rating when you set up your site. The network is part of the Pro plan.
- 2
Match
Partners come only from opted-in members. Never you, never a brand on your competitor list. Members who have given more links than they received are matched first.
- 3
Cap
At most two partner links in one article. A member receives at most three new links in any seven days. You never link the same partner twice within 30 days.
- 4
Place
The link is written into the article text. By default it points at the partner's homepage, with their brand name as the anchor. If the link does not make it into the final text, it is discarded and earns nothing.
- 5
Settle
Credits move only when the article carrying the link is live on a real URL: plus one for the member who gave the link, minus one for the member who received it.
- 6
Verify
About a day after going live, the page is fetched to confirm the link is there, then rechecked every 30 days. If it has gone, the credits reverse.
Where that lands on the risk table
Links sit inside article text, never on link pages or footers. Anchors default to brand names. Volume is capped per article and per week. Links are not traded one-for-one: you give to members and receive from members, and the two need not be the same sites.
Direct pairs can still happen. Nothing in the matching stops a member you linked to from linking to you later, after the 30-day gap.
What the network does not do
- Promise a Domain Rating, rankings or traffic
- Sell links, or let anyone buy credits
- Match partners by topic: the rules above are the whole matcher
- Add nofollow or sponsored to the links
- Remove published links when someone leaves
- Make link exchange risk-free
Should you join a backlink exchange?
Join one if your site is new or small, your keywords are out of reach because of authority, and you accept that some of the links may be discounted. Skip it if your site already earns links on its own, if you are in a field where a manual action would be expensive, or if you would rather keep every outbound link under your own editorial control.
Either way, an exchange should be one source of links, not the main one. The links that last come from pages people want to cite: original data, useful tools, clear answers to questions your industry keeps asking. Our guide on how to get backlinks covers the ways that do not depend on a network.
Two kinds of link are entirely in your control and carry no exchange risk. Internal links, which the free internal link checker maps in about two minutes, and the content itself, which is what other sites link to. That second part is what the AI SEO agent does every day: a researched article published to your blog, with the backlink network as an option you can leave switched off.
Pro is $99 a month for one site, one article a day, 30 tracked buyer questions across four AI engines, and access to the network. The switch stays off until you turn it on. See pricing.