newbie webmaster

Exchange links with other websites is the most rational thing to consider to webmasters in order to gain websites popularity, reach more visitors, get more pagerank and having websites in search engines pages.

From budget perspective, this scheme also the cheapest thing webmaster can afford. Mostly it only need times, partners (that easily can be found via tons of webmasters forums), determination, and chances.

For years, it mostly has been a rule, that webmaster who ask other to exchange links will put links in their page(s) first before they ask to do the same thing. And this rule is a good thing to preserve, it makes the partner feels honoured and in many cases, it will threat the exchange links process in a more convenient way.

Tips for inquiring the want to be linked exchange websites:

1. Check the page source, if it contains a nofollow code, you better stay away from it. With nofollow code, webmaster restricts robot to crawl site(s). You will not gain pagerank, and if your link on it not visible enough, you'll not get visitors either. Exchange link with this kind of website only and if only your link is visible enough to visitors (link that is located on the header page is visible enough to visitors!).
2. Check the site's pagerank, either with a google toolbar or using a third parties websites (search using term pagerank checker .. you'll find tons of it). Some pagerank checker's websites also have an ability to check wheter the pagerank is a trus pagerank or a "forged" pagerank (a fake pagerank that is gotten from another site redirection).

But before starting to exchange links with other webmaster, below are tips that must be considered:

1. Put the link on your web, and mail the webmaster, or via contact page on respective website.
2. Provide the honest information regarding your web, such as amount of visitors, pagerank, where you put the links, etc. For a newly launched website, tells them frankly.
3. Bear in minds that there's no correlation between pagerank values and amount of visitors, some websites have good pagerank but its not implies that it has a good amount of visitors too, and vice versa. So you better draw your mind first whether it will be a link exchange to gain visitors or to get pagerank.
4. Nowadays, the most popular link exchange scheme is index page (homepage) link exchange, sitewide link exchange has been popular earlier, but some webmasters do not do this scheme anymore. Google scams issues are the main considerations. Be prepared to have this kind of link exchange scheme!

And the latter, is tips after successful link exchange:

1. Remember to have a contact name and contact email from partner, and also the scheme of exchange link. So you can contact them for other future opportunities, or to contact them in case something went wrong.
2. Having a good script to automatically checks links to other websites is a good option. But if you can effort it, it is okay to check it manually. It can be weekly, biweekly or monthly check. So if you found that partner website left off your link, you can ask them quickly.

That's all, it needs a time .. but indeed a is a good option to gain popularity and pagerank.