This is a post by Cristian Lungu
Reciprocal linking is without doubt one of the most disputed subjects in the SEO community. The reason for this is because they simultaneously can greatly contribute to your link network and also damage it pretty seriously.
One thing is certain though, Google is getting better by the semester in finding and demoting low quality link exchanges to zero and even negative values.
Search engines have not declared war to link reciprocation but rather to the unnatural linking patterns meant solely to increase the number of links and consequently, enhance rankings.
