The market for antivirus software is global in scope and absolutely massive in size. To pick up just a small percentage of this market could see a business become very successful, and this is why we have seen so many new antivirus companies enter the fray in recent years. While the potential for large scale and long term success is definitely there, there is also a lot of competition between different software houses for the antivirus customer dollar.

It is almost impossible for a new developer to be noticed by the market without a concerted promotional campaign. Many businesses include search engine optimisation (SEO) as a part of their promotional endeavors, with link exchange often making up a large part of this optimisation activity.

Search engine optimisation involves a number of methods to organically improve the traffic which comes to a particular website through the search engines. Because the search engines are where the majority of websites receive the majority of their traffic from, this is a crucial part of the development of any online business. For companies operating solely in the virtual domain of the Internet, SEO is a vital online marketing strategy that often works alongside other methods of online marketing such as paid advertising. Google and the other major search engines rank different web pages as a result of many factors. These factors can be broadly split into on-page and off-page, with the former concerned with how well a page benefits the end user, and the later concerned with how well it is recognised in the larger Internet community. Off-page results can be optimised through a SEO technique called a link exchange.

Google attempts to rank the authority of a website by how many other pages are linking to it. Many SEO companies and individual businesses doing their own SEO are forming link exchanges with other similar websites in order to artificially rank and improve their own authority in the eyes of the search engines. For a company releasing a piece of antivirus software in a crowded market, using a link exchange could help them to become noticed among other older and already respected companies. Antivirus software is an absolutely critical tool for individuals and businesses alike, and if a new company has an innovative solution to the problem of 'malware', it is important to get its product into the public eye. Link exchanges are a powerful way to get such a company noticed by the search engines and get their product into the market quickly.

Antivirus software can secure systems against a number of harmful threats, such as viruses, trojans, worms and rootkits. Through signature and behaviour detection mechanisms, antivirus tools can detect and remove any threats to a computer system, often as soon as they are noticed. As computer and Internet useage grows all over the world, computer viruses are becoming more of a threat due to more regular and even constant broadband exposure. Antivirus applications are of paramount importance as they help to insure all of the systems and procedures that are occurring in the digital domain. For any new business with a great product that can assist in this act of computer security, product exposure is important for their survival. Link exchange and other SEO activities are a big part of the solution that can help to ensure such great antivirus products get all of the public attention that they deserve.