Why Post or Trade Links Manually?

[rickvidallon]

When I post or trade a link I first consider the following;
'Is this web site going to be of value to someone who visits my website'.

Frankly, I do not care if the site has a Page Rank of '0' or whether or not it has been indexed by Google.

I see it this way... if it is a well designed site, with great images, content or information it will (eventually) do well in the search engines on it's own merit -- in due time.

It's always best to post/trade links with websites for the sake of your visitors, not search engines.

This type of linking can only be done manually.

Although it can be a tedious process I have seen this linking approach help to achieve a more stable SERP during algo changes circa Sept 2005.

[cscgal]

I definitely agree that a good site will eventually succeed in the engines on its own merit. However, this only applies to content rich sites with many unique pages of unique content, which have very usability-friendly navigation schemes.