Meskipun Pagerank tidak lagi berpengaruh pada SERP, budaya tukar-tukaran link masih tetap terjadi di blogosphere. Hal ini karena PageRank masih merupakan presitse tersendiri tentang kesuksesan sebuah blog. Dan juga walaupun SERP tidak dipengaruhi oleh PageRank, namun secara tidak langsung jumlah, kualitas, dan relevansi backlink pada sebuah blog tetap berpengaruh pada peringkat di SERP.
Google sendiri sebenarnya secara jelas melarang dilakukannya tukar-tukaran link, seperti yang disebutkan dalam situs resminya:
Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:
- Links intended to manipulate PageRank
- Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web
- Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)
- Buying or selling links that pass PageRank
Sumber: google webmasters
Sehingga banyak blogger pemula yang melakukan kesalahan berikut dalam tukar-tukaran link untuk meningkatkan page rank:
