Free Link Exchanges Explained

May 6, 2025

4 min read

Free link exchanges are a backlink-getting strategy from a third party. In case you see written expressions such as ABC link exchanges, non-reciprocal link exchanges, swapping backlinks, or something like that, you know it's all the same process.

Free link exchanges is a strategy for SEOs, but you should do it right and with care, as it is considered a link scheme and can violates Google’s spam policies.

According to Ahrefs' research, 43.7% of the top-ranking pages they studied got backlinks via ABC link exchanges. That is why, as a company specialized in contextual backlinks, we want to speak about this strategy, but not to reccomend if you do not understand the concept. I have separated four types of link exchanges I’ve encountered during my career, and I present this information as facts I’ve observed in the field.

Table of content

4 Types of Free Link Exchanges I faced

Can I Get Penalized?

What should you do?

4 Types of Free Link Exchanges I faced

Before starting to explore free link exchange strategies, let’s say we name the partner who can add your link, A. B is a website or source where we can add a link. C is our client’s website or our project website. D is a source that A can use to add a link for us.

If you are considering acquiring backlinks, you may be interested in free link exchange strategies that work for you and avoid mistakes.

Direct Free Link exchanges

Direct Free Link exchange Formula: This is when Website A links to Website B, and Website B links to Website A.

This is one of the link building mistakes you can make when outsourcing link building, and I truly recommend not doing that. It can just be a reason to get a penalty.

Direct Free Link exchange Formula: A gives a link to C, and C to A.

3-way Free Link Exchanges

3-way Free Link Exchange formula: In this strategy, imagine Website A links to Website C, and Website B links to Website A.

My experience says that this strategy is most used if a link builder is doing link building for software or SaaS.

Four-way Free Link Exchanges

According to my research, this type of free link exchange is mostly seen in collaborations where the collaborators are two link builders. Why? In many cases, link building specialists do not add the links to their clients’ websites and instead use other sources for such deals.

Four-way Free Link Exchange Formula: In this case, Website B links to Website A, and Website D links to Website C.

Guest Post Free Link Exchanges

Guest post free exchanges are a strategy to share your content and publish it on your friend’s website, and they do the same from their side.

There is no exact way or formula to do it. It can be implemented either directly or indirectly, such as through three-way or four-way exchanges.

Can I Get Penalized?

Yes, you can be penalized if you do it in a very aggressive way. I do not recommend doing that, as you read this article, if you are not an experienced link builder — I’m just pointing out some facts I’ve observed in this field.

What should you do?

Outsource link building to an agency that can assist you with it. GoPeak.io has no projects that have been penalized, and we are proud to help you further with our SEO consultation.