[LB]

Of course, and I would venture to suggest that the big decline in submits shows that many already think submitting to LL's is a waste of time.

The LL model was fine 8 years ago, good even 5 years ago, but it has hardly changed or adapted past a few more pics and some going for category recips to fortify their SE rankings. I look at most LL's nowadays and I see pretty much the same site I saw 8 years ago, the same designs, the same jungle of links. Surfers don't wan't that and are voting with their feet.

Not only that but still so many linklist owners are making newbie mistakes with their SEO. I mean asking for a text recip with anchor text "ABCDE Link List" or "JingleJangle Porn" or something that nobody searches for ... you really have to wonder.

Lastly the rules pages where you lay down the law, tell me I can't do this, can't do that, you will ban me from the internet if I do this, the powertrip is over folks. Submits and backlinks are your lifeblood and many of us simply aren't prepared to submit to a place that wants to make us jump through hoops for their 3 clicks a day.

Streamline your insite navigation, increase the content a surfer can see while decreasing the many clicks required to get to the content. Fix your recips and maybe try to change to an ABC or AB CD linking model.

Ask yourself what is the purpose of your linklist?

Are you trying to rank well in the SE's .. if so then change your recip or linking model so you are getting good backlinks and targeting the terms you want.

Are you trying to build bookmarkers .. if so give surfers a reason to stay on your site, and not get frustrated because of the maze like structure of your site. Do you have enough content to keep them on your linklist?

In short, linklists need to be reinvented. Seeing the constant fall of most linklists in the SE's, I would say the Search Engines agree too.