We know that we should not exhnage links with link farms. But how can we identify link farms? A site having a categorized link page can be considered as a link farm? Lets say it is about computers but its link page has subpages for computer partners, science partners, medicine partners...
A directory is OK, a link farm has loads of pages of rubbish content and hundreds of links on a page and is not OK. If the directory is looking like a link farm then don't waste your time submitting.
mad4: You are talking about the "categorized link page" while saying "directory", right? Because, i especially want to know how to interpret a categorized partners page of a site ?
if it's a directory that has an auto-approval rule, it's a linkfarm there are few of these, even in the better lists
In fact i am talking about web sites is general. (Not talking about web directories sepecifically. But i understood the relation between a link farm and a web directory.) I mean more like this: http://www.getafreelancer.com/res/ Assume that they have create that page as an index to different ctategories listed there. So a link to "Business Directories" sites , a link to "Credit Card Processing" sites... What do you think? Would you like to exchange link with a site structured like that? So at the end each page will not have more than 10-15 links..
I've looked at the site, it has a good PR, million backlinks, and the page is at least organized into categories. So it's worth submitting to these directories.
I just visited that Getafreelancer resource page.. It accepts only limited categories... That's why it got good PR for that resource page.. i hope... Am i correct?
I wouldnt consider this as a link farm. A site with lots and lots link pages that link to all sorts of sites *without* categorizing the partners is a link farm. Usually such sites will either lave one big page with lots and lots of unrelated links or will have 100s of link pages link1.html, link2.html, link3.html ..... link100.html without proper naming and conventions, which list all kinds of links together.
I agree to this. In fact i recently decided to restructure my PR5 partners page. As i asked in my question, i used categorization and each category will have related links only. And i dont plan to have more than 10-15 links per page. (Adding screenshots of the webpages and adding a descriptions for each category are other things i will do to have a more professional look.) I agree. My urls are properly rewritten. So thanks for the answers. It seems that my partner page will not look like a link farm.
Link Farm: (1) A large parcel of land devoted to raising crops. (2) Land used for producing dairy products (dairy farm) or raising certain fish or animals, such as a lobster farm, oyster farm, etc. (3) A geographical area in which a real estate salesperson concentrates his or her business efforts (farms). (4)none of above, simply a overcollection of spammy links.