LinkExchange

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title: "LinkExchange" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["digital-marketing-companies-of-the-united-states", "marketing-companies-established-in-1996", "online-advertising-services-and-affiliate-networks"] description: "Internet advertising cooperative" topic_path: "geography/united-states" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LinkExchange" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Internet advertising cooperative ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2f/Linkexchange_logo.png" caption="The LinkExchange logo, circa 1998"] ::

LinkExchange was a popular Internet advertising cooperative, similar in function to a webring, originally known as Internet Link Exchange or ILE.

It was founded in March 1996 by 23-year-old Harvard graduates Tony Hsieh (who later went on to invest in and become the CEO of Zappos) and Sanjay Madan. Ali Partovi later joined them as a third partner in August 1996. Alfred Lin dropped out of his Stanford PhD program to join as CFO. In November 1996, when the company consisted of about 10 people, it moved from Hsieh's and Madan's living room to an office{{cite web|url=http://linkexchange.com/compinfo/comp_index.html |title=Company Info |publisher=LinkExchange.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19980128015233/http://linkexchange.com/compinfo/comp_index.html |archive-date=January 28, 1998 |url-status=dead

In June 1998, LinkExchange acquired MerchantPlanet, an early shopping cart and credit card application.{{cite web|url= http://adage.com/article?article_id=65386|title= LinkExchange buys e-commerce site|publisher= Advertising Age|date= June 22, 1998

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Linkexchange_banner.png" caption="A LinkExchange in-house advertising banner, circa 1998"] ::

In November 1998, when LinkExchange had 100 employees, it was acquired by Microsoft{{cite web|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB910216110299783500|title= Microsoft Buys LinkExchange For About $250 Million in Stock|publisher= Wall Street Journal|date= November 5, 1998

LinkExchange stopped taking new applications on November 15, 2006. On June 4, 2007 it stopped serving banners.

References

References

1. Ni, Perla. (May 27, 1999). "The American Dream: Running Your Own Show". [[AsianWeek]].
2. "Ali Partovi on LinkedIn". LinkedIn.
3. (28 July 2009). "Alfred Lin Has The Midas Touch: The Man With $2 Billion In Acquisitions Under His Belt".
4. "Microsoft's bCentral LinkExchange Banner Network Shuts Down".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::