What is an ABC link exchange and how can it improve your SEO?

12 June 2025

An important concept with Forward Link, is the ABC link exchange. But what is it and how does it benefit you?

What is an ABC link exchange?

An ABC or 3 way link exchange, is an exchange of inbound links, involving three websites.  For example, site A links to site B, then site B links to site C and site C links to A.

This is a more natural looking linking situation than a typical reciprocal link exchange between sites A and B just linking to eachother.

It is therefore more likely to be taken seriously by search engines, as genuine inbound links.

This minimises the risk of the link being penalised by search engines, maximising the benefit of the new inbound link to each website owner.

Of course, it depends on the quality of the websites involved in the ABC link exchange and they should not repeatedly build links this way, the sites involved should change in order to make things look as natural as possible.

The beauty is, using Forward Link you can easily participate in ABC link exchanges and reap the benfits of link building!

How does it benefit your business?

Inbound links are very important for SEO and signal to search engines like Google, that your website is a valuable resource. This means, search engines will prioritise it more in their listings, meaning your site will rank higher for certain keywords.

Higher rankings, leads to more traffic, which leads to more sales! 

Imagine you sell used cars.  If your website came up number one in your city for the search "used cars", then changes are you are going to sell more cars than dealers who don't rank so high in Google.

Inbound links are a major ranking factor, this means it is one of the most important things you can do to promote your website higher in Google.

How can you do this in Forward Link?

Forward Link allows website owners and SEO agencies to build links via ABC link exchanges.  Forward Link was designed to be a collaborative platform, so SEO agencies and website owners can work together to enhance their SEO through link building, without having to pay for every link.

With our Multisite and Unlimited plans, you can load as many sites as you want and strategically build links for those sites.

When you build links, rather than just link between two sites, get another one involved, as described in this blog post, so you can enhance your backlink profile.

How can you get started?

First of all, make sure you have added all your sites to Forward Link, via your profile. 

Then read our guide on How to use Forward Link to build amazing backlinks!

Example:

A Dog Grooming Company links to a pet food company.  The Pet Food company, then links to a Pet Blog.  The Pet Blog, then links back to the Dog Grooming Company.  Job done!