Never has competition been so difficult in the Internet world. Google and Yahoo keep indexing more and more pages, into the millions upon millions, and yet more and more many people are creating super quickie links pages that are supposed to get other webmasters to want to trade links with them.

I still trade links with other webmasters, but Ive gotten more particular as the hyperlink trade offers get worse and worse.

First of all, nobody uses title tags correctly anymore. Just for example, a directory page for cars should have a automotive keyword in the title tag, not "ACME Soap washes your odor away guaranteed!". Would I want my hot rod site listed on a page with that for a title tag? Remember, if by some miracle that page got listed in Google the backlink would read "ACME Soap washes your odor away guaranteed!". More than likely the page wouldnt even come up under any searches for cars or hot rods, even if all the links on the page we are automotive related. Now, this example was a nice links directory compared to most today.

Most many people who want to trade links have links directory consisting of nothing but miscellaneous links. I mean nothing but links. Ive seen a lot with no design whatsoever and no name tag at all. A page of links with no theme whatsoever is worthless for my page and yours.

The hidden links page is also a big frustration of mine. Youve got to love it. One webmaster said you shouldnt absolutely need a magnifying glass and a GPS system to find a backlink to the directory. Webmasters need to beginning treating their links pages as though they we are as important as the rest of their site.

A lot has been said about link trades being a lot less good these days. Could the problems weve covered here be the cause?

A Good Directory
A grand links directory has title tags that relate to the content of the page, is organized neatly by theme, is effortless to find, and is as close to your web sites main theme as possible. In other words, the more related the page is to your sites content, the more the backlink trade is going to be valuable to your site. This is regardless of whether or not you get a higher search engine ranking. The best possible backlink trade for overall adds in traffic are ones that are going to boost your traffic with or without search engines, and if the links directory is a resource to the public you will get traffic from it. It would be much more probable that you would get a boost from such a site.

The basic moral of the story is if you want grand sites to hyperlink to you then make a great professional looking links directory, and please no more title tags that do nothing but repeat your business title.