Define a link farm

[nuzelonde]

What is a link farm?

[Hbird64]

A link farm is a site where the are only links to other sites and therefor offer no original content at all. It is not a problem for small, very specific directories, but it is a big problem when there are only affiliate links available.

Hugo

[nuzelonde]

Thanks.

"only links to other sites and therefor offer no original content "

If a site offers some original content along with the links, is that considered a link farm?

"but it is a big problem when there are only affiliate links available"

Why is a link farm a big problem?

[Hbird64]

Originally posted by nuzelonde
If a site offers some original content along with the links, is that considered a link farm?

Depends on how many original content. If there are a few affiliate links to PE amazon.com, and the rest is worth being listed, I won't decline such a submission.


Why is a link farm a big problem?

Link farms are only create to make money for the webmaster, and therefor not worth being listed. We are trying to offer rich content sites, and not going for the quantity of sites. If someone thinks the links are worth listing, then they should add the sites, and not the link farm.

Maybe other directories think different.

Hugo

[ihelpyou]

?

Link farms are "link farms" when you link up for the sole purpose of influencing ranks in the search engines.

If you simply link because the site is relevant to your visitors and a resource your visitors might be interested in, then it is not a link farm.

You knew that. ;)

[nuzelonde]

>>Link farms are "link farms" when you link up for the sole >>purpose of influencing ranks in the search engines.

In order to boost link popularity scores, yes? So, How does the search engine know what the "sole purpose" is? I mean, if a link farm cunningly wove in content in order to disguise itself (i.e it's not just outbound links), would this be considered a link farm? Would this activity be considered tricking the search engines?

[ihelpyou]

Yes, if they are doing it for the link pop. :)

[Advisor]

I'm not sure as I have not studied up on the definition of link farms, but I believe the farm aspect comes in because all those who add links to the "farm" are supposed to also copy the links page and put it on their own site. Or maybe that's called something else, but that was always my understanding of what a link farm was. By doing this, you create hundreds of link pages that are all alike floating around out there.

Hope this helps!

Jill

[Sharon & Roy]

Originally posted by nuzelonde

So, How does the search engine know what the "sole purpose" is? I mean, if a link farm cunningly wove in content in order to disguise itself (i.e it's not just outbound links), would this be considered a link farm? Would this activity be considered tricking the search engines?

Hello nuzelonde,

A Link Farm is a large group of Web sites who usually have nothing in common, other than they are Web sites and that they want to "Artificially Inflate" their inbound links (a.k.a. link popularity) to "fool" the search engines into "thinking" that their Web page is more important that it really is.

Most search engines view this as Spam and in Google's case, they will ban your whole site.

Also, Link Farms will want you to upload a page or a group of pages to YOUR Web site each and every month. These pages simply contain the SAME links, in other words, MIRROR pages or Spam in Google's case. The links are to all the Link Farm participants.

The idea is to gain thousands of links to your site instantly and without much effort.

Just in case it is not obvious to anyone reading this we'd like to say ...

Don't participate in these types of strategies, that is unless you just want to randomly reciprocate links with sites that have nothing in common with yours, and if you don't care about your site being banned from Google and/or other search engines.