cation can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to oThe two most popular ways to increase traffic as well as link popularity are: a) by activating a reciprocal link exchange campaign and b) by article syndication. In this article we try to compare the effectiveness of the two traffic building approaches. Reciprocal link exchange is an artificial way to increase link popularity. If the web pages exchanging links are not contextually related, than the exchange is not effective and the user experience offered is rather poor. The effect of reciprocal link exchange on search engine optimisation is nowadays doubted. Moreover which type of relationship is considered valid, is not clarified. Furthermore, links stemming from pages that are characterised as directories are devaluated. On the other hand, attempting to exchange links with higher ranked pages (according to Google or Alexa) may be fruitless: why would a higher rank page accept to exchange links with a lower page rank page: it does not sound like a fair deal. Furthermore the execution of a reciprocal link exchange campaign is a time consuming process. Some sites offer link exchange directories to facilitate site research and/or software to select candidate sites and automate the whole link exchange process (send an email to request exchange, receive answer, build or remove links etc.) (e.g. www.linkexplore.com).

Article syndication involves a higher level of effort in order to write the article content. However, the benefit derived by this approach is considered superior by many. This approach allows for one-way incoming links to the article owner’s web site, which is considered more effective. Moreover article syndication can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to o

not effective and the user experience offered is rather poor. The effect of reciprocal link exchange on search engine optimisation is nowadays doubted. Moreover which type of relationship is considered valid, is not clarified. Furthermore, links stemming from pages that are characterised as directories are devaluated. On the other hand, attempting to exchange links with higher ranked pages (according to Google or Alexa) may be fruitless: why would a higher rank page accept to exchange links with a lower page rank page: it does not sound like a fair deal. Furthermore the execution of a reciprocal link exchange campaign is a time consuming process. Some sites offer link exchange directories to facilitate site research and/or software to select candidate sites and automate the whole link exchange process (send an email to request exchange, receive answer, build or remove links etc.) (e.g. www.linkexplore.com).

Article syndication involves a higher level of effort in order to write the article content. However, the benefit derived by this approach is considered superior by many. This approach allows for one-way incoming links to the article owner’s web site, which is considered more effective. Moreover article syndication can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to o

e or Alexa) may be fruitless: why would a higher rank page accept to exchange links with a lower page rank page: it does not sound like a fair deal. Furthermore the execution of a reciprocal link exchange campaign is a time consuming process. Some sites offer link exchange directories to facilitate site research and/or software to select candidate sites and automate the whole link exchange process (send an email to request exchange, receive answer, build or remove links etc.) (e.g. www.linkexplore.com).

Article syndication involves a higher level of effort in order to write the article content. However, the benefit derived by this approach is considered superior by many. This approach allows for one-way incoming links to the article owner’s web site, which is considered more effective. Moreover article syndication can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to o

ail to request exchange, receive answer, build or remove links etc.) (e.g. www.linkexplore.com).

Article syndication involves a higher level of effort in order to write the article content. However, the benefit derived by this approach is considered superior by many. This approach allows for one-way incoming links to the article owner’s web site, which is considered more effective. Moreover article syndication can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to o

cation can yield a high benefit, since articles may be republished to other sites. The big three of the search engine industry are trying to compete by the continuous improvement of services offered. They are trying to improve the User experience by promoting meaningful links. An article which analyses a subject of interest successfully and provides links closely related to the subject, has the potential to offer a satisfactory viewer experience. Quality article banks control and verify these links on their relevance, in order to reassure the viewer experience. Article syndication is a higher added value process than link exchange. In addition, link exchange may be a short term solution, since sites may soon decide to remove a link, while article syndication is considered to have a long-term effect (articles are stored in article banks for a long period). The degree of link relevance is usually higher in article syndication, offering a better viewer experience. Copyright 2006 – Kostis Panayotakis