Link Exchanges and Affiliate Promotion

*Link exchanges are all the rage right now but beware of who you're joining forces with!

Link exchanges, when done in a correct manner, benefit both parties and are a great affiliate promotion tool. You're providing quality links to your site visitors and you're gaining incoming links for your search engine optimization. However, make sure the site you exchange links with is one you'd honestly recommend—remember that if they turn out to be a bad apple, it will reflect on you as well. And, don't participate in link farms (most search engines specifically forbid that, since the link farm is of no practical use to actual human users and only exists to manipulate search engine rankings).