One day someone will apply common sense to all the magic theories about linking.
SE algos
cannot tell whether any particular link is reciprocal, one way, three way or polymorphous. So they cannot give less "weight" to any particular arrangement for any particular page. Search Engines are not in the slightest bit concerned if one page from site A links to a page on site B and a page on site B also links to a page on site A.
It doesn't matter simply because that will go on in the natural order of the linking on internet anyway.
What the SEs seek to devalue are
linking schemes. Reciprocal, three way or
one way and links that are not real "votes".
The key part in links that are of no value currently or will be at some point in time and the ones that SEs continually seek to eliminate from manipulating their ranking algorithms are the ones that can be placed by, or contrived to be in the favour of any site owner or operator.
A few examples;
Outgoing links from very many forums have no weight or value with SEs simply because these links are very easily gained by anyone joining the forum.
Outgoing links from very many directories have no value, despite the owners outlandish claims about being SE friendly, PR boosting etc.
Many potentially will be devalued with weeks of being launched simply because the script has an already known footprint. Some may survive until they possibly reach "critical mass" of the usual suspects
Some of course, if managed as a valuable resource for others rather than a cash generator may even survive with their "passing power" unscathed.
Linking schemes (of any flavour) are soon devalued simply because they are linking schemes that have a detectable footprint.
After all if reciprocal links were "bad", and given the fact that search engines rank pages not sites, wouldn't every sites own navigation be reciprocal links?
