Be spongeworthy: don't ask for links, earn them!
As Aaron points in enough detail that I won't repeat it all here, Google is now penalizing link exchanges and other dubious linking tactics. Let me quote one of the key statements from Matt Cutts:
“I’d think about the quality of your links if you’d prefer to have more pages crawled. As these indexing changes have rolled out, we’ve improving how we handle reciprocal link exchanges and link buying/selling.”
I've never subscribed to the whole let's-get-as-many-reciprocal-links-as-possible theory of search engine optimization. Despite the hundreds of books and articles telling me to do it, I don't. I don't even ask readers of my book to link to this site, even if I mention their sites here. This penalizes me in the short term. But in the long term it's a benefit, as evidenced by the statement above.
Links that are earned and not bought or traded are the most worthwhile links you can get. As Google (and the other search engines) move to more of a trust- and authority-based ranking model, the earned links are what's going to boost you to the top.
How do you earn a link? By being interesting and different. By offering value to the reader, not just regurgitating what everyone else is saying. By being unique and original.
There's a classic Seinfeld episode called The Sponge that deals with this very topic, where Elaine has to decide if her dates are “sponge-worthy” or not because she has a limited supply of sponges available. Much hilarity ensues. It's all about supply and demand and limited resources.
Put yourself in Elaine's shoes. Pretend each of your links is one of those sponges. Are the sites you're linking to spongeworthy?
Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. You can read this blog by mail if it's more convenient for you, just send a blank email to memwg-blog@aweber.com to subscribe.