New Developments in SEO

[Andy]

I have stumbled across some interesting things lately with regard to Search Engine Optimization.

It seems that now search engines like Google are so valuable, they are very determined to stay ahead of people trying to manipulate the search results with linking strategies like artificial link exchanges and buying inbound links. So they are experimenting with their algorithm and sites are jumping around in their placements in the search results. But things should stabilize when the algorithms are settled.

This is my opinion based on stuff I read:
As ever, original content will be most favoured togther with links from a variety of related sites. However, these links should not all be identical in terms of the
pages they link to and the anchor text used. Also, the ip addresses of the sites should be different so it doesn't look like they all come from the same shared server. Regular fresh content added to a site ought to be well received, especially if it relates to current world news.

So I think setting up link exchange pages is probably a waste of time now. It would be better to exchange links only with a couple of websites on each page of your site or even a circular link exchange amongst a group of sites. And of course, content is most important.

If search engine optimization gets too much effort, maybe people will move more towards alternatives that avoid the need for search engines altogether 

[SensoVision]

it would be good if Google would stabilze any soon as e.g. WKey jump on SERPs from first page to 10th on some good keywords and it happen so for more than year so guess they constantly try to refine their formula of ranking... I also got same feeling as you that linking in the same way doesn't produce as good result as "natural" linking when people really wish to link to your site because they like it and write text on their own...