I know I have done this trying to get a link from a competitor just seems like a waist of time and you’re probably right. I guess this is true for big business you would never see Coke linking to Pepsi or Vodafone linking to O2. But, that’s really only the big brands and you’ll find is not usually not the same for smaller companies.

A friend of mine works in a company that have one competitor and if they are over worked or cannot get to a job will refer the other company. This is how small business works in Ireland even in the SEO game where if one guy is to busy will recommend a friend/competitor.

Referral links between competitors can happen in a couple of ways

Sharing excess work

As I already said above this happens when a sudden burst of business hits them. Instead of turning work away a small business owner will refer a trusted colleague that they know. Trust is the keyword here and if you have a trusted partner whom you link to this says a lot about you professionally and algorithmically.

Referring specialties

If you offer a specialty services (which is what SEO is) like most specialty services you’ll be busy, with this comes more work and needing to refer work that may not be actually what you do or is not the right fit for your expertise is all part of the game. Look for business that do offer this service and become partners both in linking online and offline.

Now if you know a little about linking I bet your saying this sounds like a reciprocal link campaign!!

Yes you are correct

And believe it or not reciprocal links still work from a business point of view and from an algorithmic standpoint. An authority link from a high profile industry site is what we all want for our websites and having a number of referral links from partner website will do you no harm.