Sending an exchange request

Ask for an exchange, on a site's row in Find partners, or Ask for a backlink exchange in its details panel, opens the request, described as "Pick their site and yours, read their rules, and offer the pages you'd like linked. They review it — nothing goes live until both sides agree."

Picking the two sites

The page is explicit about the direction, because it is the thing people get backwards: "Their site receives your request; yours is where their link back will live."

Their site is labelled THEY LINK TO YOU. Your site is labelled YOU LINK TO THEM.

If you have several workspaces, you choose which of your sites is offering.

How the two sites compare

Under Who's exchanging with whom, both sites side by side with their figures, and a sentence explaining why it is there: "An exchange is worth most when both sides are close in strength, so this says which way this one leans."

That is the honest framing. An exchange with a much stronger site is one they have little reason to accept. An exchange with a much weaker one is one you have little reason to want. Neither is forbidden, and the comparison lets you see which you are proposing before you send it.

Where a site has no measurements yet, it says so rather than showing zeroes.

Their rules

Their published rules are shown, with the note that your request is reviewed against exactly this version.

You confirm you have read them and that your pages follow them. Do read them: most declined requests are somebody offering a page the site's rules already excluded.

When you are blocked

If something is missing, the form lists it instead of the send button, separated into what is yours to fix and what is not.

Yours: verify your site, set your exchange rules, open your site to backlink exchanges, share a page, unhide a page.

Theirs: their site is not fully set up, in which case the advice is to pick a different site.

Neither: both sites are yours, or they are the same domain. A link between two sites in one workspace is an internal link, and search engines treat it as one, so the exchange would earn nothing. The form says so rather than letting you send it.

What travels with the request

The pages you offer, from your shared list. The form notes that you keep one list, so it goes with every request and you never retype it.

Their rules, and the fact that you acknowledged them.

An optional note to the owner. Write one. Two sentences saying why your piece and theirs fit together is the difference between a request somebody reads and one they clear.

After you send

It is their move. They review it and accept or decline, and you are notified either way. Nothing happens on either site in the meantime.

An accepted request creates a partnership, and from then on neither of you needs a fresh request: either side can ask the other for a link whenever they have a page worth linking. See the partner ledger.

Where to go next

Reviewing an exchange request you received is the same thing from the other chair.