Large Internet companies spend millions on consultants and technology trying to get their sites to rank among the highest results on Google. Everyone else has to rely on the poor man’s search-engine optimization: the link exchange.
The thinking behind link exchanging is that Google will record links as a vote of confidence for sites.
If you’ve ever hung up your own shingle on the Web, you’ve probably gotten an e-mail to this effect at some point: “Dear So-and-so, I believe your site and mine could benefit from exchanging links.”