Reciprocal link exchange still is an important strategy of link popularity building despite all the measures taken by the search engines to diminish its effect. Back in 1999-2001 obtaining a quality link exchange was not difficult, and webmasters used to respond more willingly to an e-mail request. But as more people became aware of this strategy so the reciprocal linking scam started to be a common practice.
Sometimes I check my old ‘link exchange’ e-mail account I used to build link popularity for my very first website. There are lots of people contacting me daily with exchange proposals. Well, not actually people – they are mostly bots.
Probably one of the reasons I still maintain that e-mail is that those requests are a source of a persistent amusement for me. One example: a request in pink letters with images of dancing puppies and bouncing hearts written by a ‘blond chick’ (picture attached) asking me to link to her pharmacy site! Or maybe I just enjoy reading the admiring comments on the outlook and content of my site that precede every exchange proposal?
Link exchange scam is an interesting theme for a study per se and still awaits its researchers. But in the meanwhile the SEO community is being successful in summarizing the guidelines for the most perfect link exchange scam.