I am referring to the article directories that has majority unique content from authors but with 3 outgoing links on every articles page. Does Google see this as something similar to a link farm?
Probably not because theres lots of written content around the links. More of an issue would be the possibility of duplicate content if an article shows up on many article directories and then of course gets picked up for use on websites elsewhere.
If everyone was duplicated then sure or if they had a link list on a single or multi pages. I would worry more about directories more than article sites. On duplicate content, writing or re-writing (spinning) articles for each article site would make the best effort on your end BUT could take more time compared to tossing a single article on many article sites. I would worry more about the duplicate content from others posting the articles versus linking to them versus the linking strategy within the article site itself.
Thanks for the replies. I am thinking of starting an Article directory but what are the odds of it making some decent income these days? Let's say all content submitted to the directory has to be unique. Do you guys know of any webmaster with a great article site?
Article directories are categorized and has content. Link farm is a page with nothing but links, no categories and no content. Christopher M. Knight is the one managing Ezinearticles.com one of the oldest and most respected article directories in the web.