Job Board Link Exchange Basics

Here are 5 key considerations for reciprocal linking of your job site. Increase your website link popularity and avoid Search Engines’ penalties.

1. Create a specific page for outbound links, i.e. “Partners”.
   Avoid naming of the page as “Links” or “Directory” in url or page title. Too many outbound links placed on homepage would hurt your ranking. Placing all partner links in advert slot throughout all of the website pages is not a good option too.
2. Add links slowly
   Don’t place too many links in a short period of time. Get 1-3 a week and keep this rate for a couple of months. Then you can start adding more.
3. Own a network of websites? Here is a tip.
   Once you agreed a link partnership with a new website, don’t place the link to all of your network websites. Better have each of your websites create its own link partnership.
4. What websites are the preferred link partners?
   • Relevant content: any resources within Job/Recruitment industry. Not necessarily job boards. Staffing / recruitment blogs, online magazines, recruitment agencies, etc. Any websites or parts of websites with industry-related content. Preferably, choose a partner page with relevant keywords. Top case scenario: a page which is on top of Google searches for some of your target keywords.
   • Geo location is not of major importance, but it does influence your positions towards area your partners are from.
   • Page Pank of the partner page is important. The higher the PR of the page the more credits your website will get. But consider the relevancy and number of links on the partner page.
   • The number of other links already placed on the partnering page: the more links the less credits for your website. This is an issue even for high PR (5+) pages.
5. Which pages of your website to link and how?
   • Usually the homepage is the only link placed on partnering websites. But consider linking your key landing pages from external websites too. Especially when your homepage is optimized for different keywords.
   • It would help if you place top keyword variations in link anchors on different websites. I.e.: for Job board in Risk Industry: link anchors might be: Risk Jobs, Jobs in Risk, Risk Management Jobs, Marketing Risk Jobs, Credit risk jobs, etc.