Directory or Link Farm.. what is the difference?

I'm confussed

I'm new to this, but..

What is the difference between a Directory and a Link farm?

Seems to me too many people are starting up directories for nothing more than links. Are they just Link farms?

I've been told to stay away from Link farms,.. search engines will penalize you.

????

 

Read here and you will know the difference between the two: Quality & Non Quality Directories

 

A link farm will accept anything, mostly auto approval, theres no editing of link farms.

Like prostitutes, they just open up and let you in.

The way a link farm is run, they are impossible for the person to keep in order because they receive and accept so many links.

They are pointless.

6 months later a link farm owner usually will pop in here and ask what is the quickest and easiest way to dump their 55,000 pending links from their site.

They have usually auto approved 30,000 or something before that.

 

Many years ago, before search engines really started delivering good results, link directories where actually used to find information on the Web. Yahoo started out not as a search engine, but as a directory. Directories are no longer any match for SE's with regards to finding info.

As a directory owner, it is not easy for me to say this- A directory is a link farm if it is not used, or intended to be used (by the owner and visitors) as a way to find sites related to a topic.

 

So, in other words, someone that starts up a Directory or Forum today, then goes away and spends 12 months travelling, will come back to a link Farm.

Would this be how the majority of Link Farms are started?

 

A link farm has nothing to do with a directory - why not just read what an encyclopedia has to say on it? Wikipedia

 

Colorful post pipes!

SeventyThirty, are you asking this question as someone looking to start a directory or as someone looking to submit to directories?

 

Read it,.. I see that a link farm is something else.

Thanks

 

Thanks for your input.
I'm looking to submit to directories.

PS. Sorry for the double post.. forgot.

 

Can you explain the difference between a;

Food Gain Store
and
Food Gain Farm ??

On similar line is the answer you want.

 

Submit to directories with a strong editorial policy and editorial reputation- here is why-

I would bet that search engine algo engineers take into account and credit sites that are listed in directories with a solid editorial policy. A listing in such a directory would mean that sites listed have be scrutinized by a human and found to have some value to offer visitors.

 

Well you dont have to go anywhere you just neglect the site after you start it.

But yeah, you get the idea.

 

Wow - seems like a lot of people need to read that article I posted cause I have not seen a single definition in this thread that is correct.

 

Wow!... 71,000 on Alexa,... off subject a bit, but wish I could get my website near that.

 

Don't rely on Alexa stats. It's about as accurate as using a sundial to tell the time.

If you want to stay away from "link farms," be prepared to spend a little money or a lot of time researching each directory. Nowhere is there evidence that someone linking to you can harm your reputation. If that were the case it would be a free for all with webmasters linking to their competitors from link farms. That being said, it is still better to use your time and money effectively. Overlooking some of the stronger premium/paid directories is a common mistake many make because they actually have to open their wallet for a honest submission review.

Even the most poorly operated directories would not qualify as link farms. But my definition of a link farm was formed well over a decade ago. When I hear of a link farm, I think of FFA pages and the like. Thousands of links appearing on a single page. But hey, definitions do change and I do have this issue with failing to conform.

Anyway, a few of the better directories appear in the prior posts. That would be a good place to start submitting if you ask me.

Happy submitting!

 

yes there is difference in linkfarm and directory. if the directory where your submitting is quality and relavant.
Linkfarm accepts any link of any category.
directory will not turn to link farm if that directory accepts link according to relevancy and quality.
So always go for quality and quantity.

 

Any web site whether its a directory or not can become a link farm when it start accepting and listing all kind of links with no selection or organization.

 

Directory = with moderation and categorized.
Link Farm = no moderations and links are all mixed and not categorized.

 

I think both these methods are the necessary steps in online promotion of a site because they simple increase the chances of your site to be found!

 

Agreed.

Directories used to be able to fall back on the categorisation difference. i.e. Link Farms from years ago didn't have categories, whereas directories do so they are different.

However, these days that just doesn't fly. Any directory that contains repetitive spam or unedited content, in a significant capacity, should be considered a link farm and avoided.

If you need an idea of how this works, do a search on flower (as an example keyword - another favourite is hydraulic or india) in any directory, and look at the results returned. If you can see a lot of similar/same results, or results that contain repetitive words all over the place, then you have found a link farm disguised as a directory.

Sadly, most directories that you do that search on will fail the test. Just because they don't show anything for that particular term doesn't mean they aren't a link farm though, they could have bad results for other terms or simply not be editing the poor submissions that are submitted.

As someone earlier said, the only *real* way of discerning for yourself which directories pass the test is to spend time researching each one. Most people can't be bothered and just go and submit to several thousand...