We have reciprocal links with related sites -- all relevant, but I am concluding these links do us very little good, and have consumed a great deal more resource than they are worth. We have PR6 inbound links and many more inbound links (10x) than competitive sites who have better serps. I think we are wasting a lot of time.

The question isn't how good reciprocal links are, but rather whether they are actually bad, or just a waste of time.

fb

__________________
Pizza Ovens
Pizza Peels

I've never seen any evidence that reciprical links are bad. They have definitely become less valuable over the last couple of years, but I doubt VERY much that they are bad. I think your standard Reciprical Manager or Link Manager directories are likely getting flagged these days and all of those recips may be devaled to 0, but I've seen no evidence of them being penalized.

As for you competitors, if we assume all obvious recips are worthless (I am not saying that is the case, but just for the sake of argument) then you would have to look not at how many more links you have than them, but rather at how many more VALUABLE links you have. Maybe when you get rid of the recips, forum/blog/guestbook sigs and other potentially worthless links, they have more/higher quality links remaining?

__________________
The Future of Google SEO - Trust
Yahoo Store SEO and Design