To 3-Way or not to 3-Way ... that is the question

No I'm not referring to every man's fantasy come true.

3-way linking is the subject I'd like to draw your kind attention to. I'm referring to gathering 60 agents of from one single franchise, dividing them into 3 groups of 20 for some non-reciprocal linking. Group A links to B, B to C and C to A.

My readings and discussions have uncovered some controversy over this matter. So I put it to you, Gurus of Google, Sultans of SEO, is three-way linking from extremely relevant sites (real estate site to real estate site & also within the same franchise) considered black or white hat?

Side note: I may be mistaken, but I believe I saw some links disappear from the bottom of Jim's site recently. Do you know something I don't, Jim?. Do share.

[Jim Messenger]

Originally Posted by james7bond 3-way linking is the subject I'd like to draw your kind attention to. I'm referring to gathering 60 agents of from one single franchise, dividing them into 3 groups of 20 for some non-reciprocal linking. Group A links to B, B to C and C to A. My readings and discussions have uncovered some controversy over this matter. So I put it to you, Gurus of Google, Sultans of SEO, is three-way linking from extremely relevant sites (real estate site to real estate site & also within the same franchise) considered black or white hat?

All four major search engines have claimed they have the ability to track three-way linking schemes. Note that I used the word schemes; this is the same word the search engineers use to describe it as well.

Originally Posted by james7bond Side note: I may be mistaken, but I believe I saw some links disappear from the bottom of Jim's site recently.

You are correct, the homepage reciprocal links have been removed (after notifying partners of my intentions) from my site.

Originally Posted by james7bond Do you know something I don't, Jim?. Do share

That depends...What do you know? LOL

[Jim Messenger]

Hi Michael,

MSN's Junk Page Filter spawned the removal of the links. We are monitoring the effects of varying elements in relationship to rankings. External links are not the only items we are testing. I will report my findings after sufficient time has passed.

Aside from that, in my opinion, the homepage reciprocal links have no added benefit for search engine rankings.

Originally Posted by james7bond ...3-way linking is the subject I'd like to draw your kind attention to. I'm referring to gathering 60 agents of from one single franchise, dividing them into 3 groups of 20 for some non-reciprocal linking. Group A links to B, B to C and C to A.

I am not a SEO guru but I do like to analyze trends. I believe that reciprocal linking in all its incarnations has peaked. What has remained the most important factor in linking is the degree to which the content of the linked pages and linked sites supplement each other. If the pages contain relevant content for each other go ahead and link without regard to whether it is one-way, reciprocal or hidden reciprocal.