I built this site antstuff.net and also antfarmz.net when I first started out. I didn't know much about SEO and so I joined up with Linkalizer and started building links with many other sites. If you go to my resource page you'll see that I have quite a farm going, but I consistently get #1 or first page results on many keywords; antfarms, ant farms, buy live ants, ant farm supplies and many others. I realize that this market is not highly competitive, but do you think I would have even better rankings if I did not have the link farm? It's been working so far, so I don't want to change it, but I hope I'm not getting penalized.
I don't think your link farm has been punished by Google... yet. You still have a pagerank on the resource page and on the entire site. If they punish you for the link farm, you'll likely lose the PR and your traffic will drop quickly. I don't think your link farm is very big, so it's not too mch of a problem. You may just want to keep it from getting too big. And keep the links ant-related. If you're really worried about it, you can bury it a little deeper in the site or set up the site so your internal links don't take visitors to the resources section. My advice-- make a separate site and use it for 3-way link exchanges... and keep the links off of the ant farm sites. --- P.S. On an unrelated note... since you're an insect expert... Do you know anything about praying mantis egg kits? I have one and I'm not sure what to feed them when they hatch. Don't know where to get "mites". And not sure what else they could eat. If you can help, please PM me.
fireboat is right about the 3-way link exchanges - that is the way to go - the only way your site gets penalized from linkfarms is that their links disappear and you lose keyword authority
google doesn't like link exchanges that are designed to manipulate PR. If they decide you're doing it, whether or not you are, they will ban you fast.
When you say make a separate site, would I need to register a new domain name strictly for the purpose of links, or should I use one of my other sites that I already have?
As long as there are no sudden increase in your link farm activity, I don't think you will see any changes. Just try to maintain the same speed of link building. It is a good news that you have reach the top spot for your niche. I think you should celebrate it rather than worrying about it.
JohnnyBravo - I registered a separate domain for link building. It got a PR in a short period of time. Just make sure you don't add too many links to each page on the separate domain. Atniz - Yes, Johnny should celebrate... but never rest on your laurels. It can always drop if you're not careful.
I don't build link farms, but according to those that do it well, you need to hide your tracks well. Like, don't leave any footprints (or minimize them). That includes not divulging anywhere on the net where your link farms are located or the sites they point to. Basically, if you disclose, in writing, the location of anything connected to a link farm on a site that can be crawled, then you can be found out. If you attract too much attention, game over.
I think the thing is indeed even more complicated. Google does look intensivly into pages with many external links. The interesting fact is that some of them are simply dropped or do not get any PR, while others - even with 200 links - are well ranked. What is the difference? Simply the type of links you put in. Theme-related link collections are seen as valuable (which they are in fact !), a crued mixture of bullshit is seen as a linkfarm (and they are right).