Penalty for being indexed from a Link Swap program?

[Georgia Poker]

I noticed today that one of my older sites is indexed in google from a popular link swap site. I quit using that some time ago when I learned how to better manage my link trading activities

So the question is, does google penalize you for this?

[Nick0r]

If you're referring to something like Link Vault, or Digitalpoint, where it's all automated 'link exchanges' then yea, you're bound to get hit with a penalty sooner or later. However, if you've cleaned up your act and removed all traces of it eventually the links will disappear and your link profile should clear up.

If it's something like Link Market which is just hooking you up with people to manually exchange you should be fine although the sites in those type of places are really really low quality and should be avoided.

[cylai]

if the links to your site is from legitimate websites (that use white hat SEO) that share common theme as yours, you shoudn't get penalized.
Speking of that, G now devalue reciprocal links. one way link is the way to go. Try to get listed in Yahoo! directory and DMOZ. Links from .edu and .gov would boost your ranking too!

good luck !