Reciprocal Links: Always Bad ? Always Useless?

[shakemelikeapig]

In checking my competitor's backlinks, I find they have a good link from
a site that allows "just anyone" to submit a backlink, but they want
you to paste a reciprocal link in exchange.



Everything I have read up to this point says that Google looks for this
and invalidates both links when it finds it. So this opens-up a long
list of questions.



First, if what I've read from so many sources is correct, then why is
the "reciprocal link place" giving a good backlink to my competitor
(according to SEO</acronym> Spyglass)?



What if the other site's reciporcal link is on a secondary page on the same domain as the backlink?



I'm pretty sure none of this is usefull, but then I want to know why the
competitor still gets juice, when the "reciprocal link site" is still
making the offer, etc...



Could this be some kind of trap, where the competitor get's juice, but everyone else loses if they submit here?

[jamesmartin]

wow that's nice.thanks for the tips of backlinks.i think it helps us a lot.

[shakemelikeapig]

any chance you could give me rep for this post?

[zombiecash]

Lol why would anyone give you rep for asking questions?

Especially when the questions aren't your own? You just copied a thread from BHW and pasted it here. Try contributing something useful and maybe you'll get some thanks and rep. It isn't handed out to people who don't provide any value.