New websites need links to develop any sort of search engine visibility. Links pointing to a new website can get it indexed and help it to start ranking for low to medium competition long tail keywords.

These keywords will send visitors searching for information on a specific topic to your website and allows you gain a new reader or make some money from whatever affiliate program or ad scheme you are running.

I’ve recently set up several websites for some friends and link building was my main concern because I needed links for the web pages to be indexed and start showing up in the search engine.

Link exchange is a famous method to build links. But I dont agree to some of your comments.

 Save you time.- Generally link exchange take some time. Communication should be done regularly and it take some time to get a reciprocal link done. But one way links are fast. You can get oneway links within few seconds from some methods.