Reciprocals losing their weight?

[irahat]

It may be too soon to tell, however I was surprised by some recent powerful backlinks that had no effect. Anyone seeing backlinks losing their weight?

We have a PR 5 site. 3 weeks ago I got 2 great backlinks (one on a PR6 home page that had no other outbound links, the other on a PR5 industry association home page with no other outbound links). Both are quality, authoratative sites in our industry.

The links have our anchor text and are follow links. Our SERP (for the term in the 2 anchor text links) hasn't changed, in fact it moved down 1-2 spots (home depots site moved up above us for our catagory of lighting).

2 links normally is no big deal but these are 2 great links. Maybe its not enough time to tell.

Note the PR6 backlink was a reciprocal (they put our link in towards the bottom of their home page above the footer not site wide) and we did the same. We are complimentary, non competitors in the same idustry but sell to different markets.

The PR 5 association link is a banner (we paid to sponsor the assocation which is in our industry) and although its a graphic it has the correct anchor/link and is a follow link from the home page only.


Any thoughts on why no SERP movement?
Any thoughts on how long for the links to effect SERP?
Note links have been acknowledged by search engines (show up in site exploerer and webmaster tools).

Thanks!

[rsalan]

I wouldn't worry about a 1-2serp drop it happens from time to time and will more then likely go back up.

For the links as long as they are relevant to your niche I cant see them putting your site down the serp. You cant rely on just two links though, you will need to keep link building (one way is much better) and keep up with fresh relevant content to as that will help with your link building.

On some forums I have read that reciprocal links are not as strong as they use to be but 'I think' they are still worth having if its a good relevant link.

If google had any problems with your links they would have knocked you down the serp more by now surly? so I would just leave it another week or two and see what happens.

[mshah]

If you have a large quantity of reciprocal links in comparison to your total number of links, then it could be likely that all reciprocal links to/from your site have been devalued.

Recips are an attempt to game the system, and therefore have lost a great deal of value.

How long have the links been in place?

[derek88]

Google is changing their alghorithm constantly, could be a reason for the drop on the SERPS. My advice is: Keep up to date on google news.