A dumb question - link farms

Hi There,

I've been reading and trying to implement all this SEO stuff for around 4 weeks now and keep coming across something that I need explained to me.

Google penalises link farms.

What does this mean? To the link farm and the sites linked to from the link farm. And just what is a link farm? (I mean how deep do you plant a link and how often do you water it?).

Mark

 

A link farm is a system where all the members are linked to each other via a common set of link pages. The result is that all members have a links page with the other members' web addresses on them. Many of these link programs have several hundred or even thousands of members, so by joining you have almost instant access to hundreds of other web sites that point links to your site. This can lead to your site looking very "popular". However, Google can and will penalize or ban sites that participate in link farms.

 

if i. or you, have 4 sites and put "sponsered by ... LINK" at the footer of each page...
will google kick me out ?

in other words how many sites is a "farm" ?

 

Donna,

I wonder if you could supply us with an address that is banned for participating?

 

Sorry, no I don't have any specific urls at my fingertips to supply you with that have been banned for participating. But even with my lousy memory, I can remember seeing quite a few over time. Just didn't save them anywhere. Vagrant, no sponsored links like you suggest wouldn't be the same thing, but I don't have an exact number to give you either.

 

Thats fine- I was just wondering. Seems it would be sort of hard to manage something like that, but I may be wrong.

 

I think its quite easy for Google to spot a link farm. Eaven if the sites dont get banned the links may be given very little credit because they are nearly all unthemed and the use the same keyword or phrase. After reading more about Google (and new SE technology) I understand that it isnt difficult for them with that knowledge and computing power they have to spot the unnatural stuff we (or someone) try to do to boost rankings.

 

I can't think of a specific example, but you might want to review the list at BlockedPR.

 

OK I'm glad I asked, I didn't know what a link farm was after all. In my usual fashion I thought it was easy to be seen as a link farm, but it's quite a bit more complex than I was thinking.

I was thinking it was one of those many pr0 directory sites that just has pages and pages of links. Of course it could be if it's affiliated with some other similar site.

Am I correct?

Mark

 

no one can every supply an address of blocked links farm, but everyone will tell you that you get kick out for it

the only linkfarm I have very heard of being penalized was linktoyou

and I farm links all day long .. just kiddding I build relevent themed resources

nice pic Vicious but I have to disagree wiht you at least in my experience I have used links manager on a couple sites, with no problems yet, and my linksmanger pages pass pr wonderfully

 

Everyone has a different opinion of what a link farm is. Ive prolly heard 50 different explanations.

I think the best one I have heard to date is this one:

If I make a page or site full of links it is good SEO, if my competitor does it, it is a linkfarm or spam.

The reason I say this is the best I have seen is due to the overwhelmingly increasing numbers of piss poor quality SEO's who feel reporting all competitors for every little thing is a valid SEO technique.

 

never use link farms otherwise u will be penaltilizes

 

And yet another dead thread is revived...

 

Link farms are pages that publishing big amount of links : like 300-1000 links/page.
Because the given PageRank is divided by the total number of out-going links on page... it won't help at al...

 

Your friends got a PR0 ?! But http://www.linksmanager.com/ it's a PR5... how came that !?

 

but how to prevent such site to include link to your site if they decide about it

 

Like he said...

 

Why bring up a thread nearly 1 year and a half old