Early on in their internet promotional career, a lot of people hear of the importance of link bank sites for ensuring that your site is given the exposure it needs. Many people religiously follow this advice thinking that that kind of exposure will make their site a well-visited place, but the truth is that this just isn’t the case. If you want to make sure your site is visited, then link banks are about as much use as writing your site’s URL on a random wall.
Link bank sites are almost never used as a way to find sites. Their major use is as a place to dump a link so that Google notices there is a link there. The more links there are, according to received wisdom, the higher Google will rank you. But this is at best half the story. If you really want Google to notice you, active links are far more important than volume of links. A link no-one clicks is of minimal value. It certainly won’t get you a first-page ranking.
Yes, you want your link to be out there on the Internet, and there is no harm in having it in as many places as possible. But an orphan link without any context to encourage someone to visit it is a wasted link. There will always be other places you could put it. Instead of joining a link bank site, it is much better to join another forum and put the link in your signature, or read someone’s blog and comment productively.
