Does anyone trade links with competitors? I know you want to beat your competition, but what if you knew your competition wasn't going to go anywhere in SERPS because of their poor seo ?

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Yup, trade with competitors by all means.

Especially if:

- like you say, they won't pass you, because they stink at SEO
- they are miles ahead, and you're aiming for a respectable "second spot"
- they're clearly an authority, for example if they show "bubbles" on labs.google.com/personalized/customize.html searches.

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If you have strong competitor and you would
link to link, look for something related that you sell
and they don't.

When you do the linkup, make sure both links work
in each partner's case.

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I trade with anyone related to my services and products...the industry is too competitive to disclude direct competitors. Remember, there are 10 spots on that first page, and the traffic figures from 7-10 are not that big, nor from 4-6, and 1-3...it just makes sense.

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Hi Cygnus, I couldn't agree more.

Find a way to reach common ground with your competitor and look for ways
to establish reciprocal relationships. It's so much better to turn a competitor into a strategic friend.

Francisco

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From a purely linking POV, it pulls your site up to the competitors, if you exchange links - ultimate relevancy, and consideration from the SE's.

Easy way to have highly valued in-bound link.

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I will trade link with competition as long as they are not targeting the same keywords. Some of my clients I do work for on the side however, try convincing them to trade links with competition, they never fully understand the benefits of it.

Hi SEO Jon,

The Net has changed some of the old business rules.

The fact we're all tied into an electronic net makes things
hard for some to understand.

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I'd like to see a case where the small guys muscle the big guys out of the top 10. If there was such a thing as a keyword co-op, where everyone targets a different keyword and helps boost each others rankings by linking to sites in the co-op that would be interesting.

Hmmm maybe I should build it, and they will come.........

Hi Jon,

I think that might be the only way to do it.

Some of those concerns have a big staff
working 40+ hours per week to dominate
for specific words.

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