Link exchanging used to be a cool trend. It did not seem to black hat. However now reciprocal links just cancel each other out. That is, unless you can get a swap from a site with more authority. I think that might just benefit you a little.
The more important thing to look out for is links from a scammy source. You can't just buy up a domain and point a bunch of links to you. You have to consider the history of that new domain. Was it a link farm before? Don't get associated with it. It may just bring you down.
Heheh. I can think of some black hat tricks to help you out. You could get ahold of a lot of these scammy sites. Then you could bulk link from them to your competitors. When they get penalized, you could rise up. Sounds pretty evil. I like it.
