Actually, the answer is yes........and no. What is a reciprocal link? It is a link to a page that is linked back to ours. Of course, a non reciprocal link is a link from a page that we are not directly linked to.

Page rank is associated in some ways to linking. You see, the more links that point to our pages, the more important Google tm or other search engines think our page is. Non reciprocal links to our page (not on our page) add a lot more weight than reciprocal links. Search engines think that if a page is willing to link to ours and not get a link back, then our page must be important. They see it as a recommendation. But thats not always true. The importance of the pages that link to ours is also accounted for. You can get 100 free hosting pages of your own and then link them to your special page with non reciprocal links and you wouldn't get any change in rank; it is a "Zero * Zero = Zero" equation.

You have to get links from pages that rank well. Then comes the other side of the question. Can I have any page link mine? And the answer is NO. Search engines think of the web as a neighborhood. If you are linked to a good neighborhood then you must be good. If you are linked to a bad "hood" then you must be bad and they rank you.

So linking to pages with illegal content such as MP3's, Warez, Hackers, etc. will soon get you a bad ranking. And probably your submission to the directories will not be accepted.

The other point of linking is ANCHOR TEXT. Anchor text is the text of the hyperlink. Read this two examples:

Example 1
http://www.elmejorguia.com/Index_english.htm

Example 2
Free tools for webmasters

You inmediately see the difference. Although both links can point to the same page the way they are phrased is different. Not only does this make a difference in the way people read the link or the way the link gets their attention, but also when search engines "see" the link, they associate this words with your site and you climb ranks in those Keywords for any associated searchs.

Now you get the point?

Your links should have good anchor text that is related to the keywords that you want to exploit.

But search engines also see KEYWORD SPAM when they find too many links with the same phrasing beacuse it doesn't seem natural They think that it is impossible that all webmasters would write the same words when linking your page. That means that you have to use slightly different phrases each time you get links to your page.

Last but not least, search engines do not see words inside pictures so image links and banners do not get you any ranking for any keyword.