How to avoid page being seen as link FARM?

[enricopalazzo]

Hi all,

Been lurking last day or so through several groups and now have a question.

Situation: I'm currently contacting related (to my website) websites to exchange links. But the first thing I do is add their link with description to my links page (to show I'm serious and to entice them to link to me). Obviously, the majority of websites do NOT add my link, but I leave their link on my website as it provides additional information to my visitors.

I've probably contacted over 30 sites now and I'm wondering...

a) should I leave only the links of websites WHO LINK BACK to prevent looking like a "bad" LINK FARM (with 30+ links) to search engines and directories? That would cut the number down to just a few that show on my links page OR...

b) leave ALL LINKS, whether they link back or not, since they are all somewhat related to my website; thus providing additional resources for my visitors?

TIA

[ihelpyou]

Welcome to the forums enrico! :hi:

Do #2. If the page helps you visitors you should link to the page.

[enricopalazzo]

Thanks for welcoming me!

So the definition of a "bad" link farm is more about inconsistent/non-interelated links/descriptions THAN actual number of links on a webpage?

I ask because I saw on some post or link (from these forums) stating that you should contact 4 to 8 times the number of linkbacks you'd like to receive. So if I wanted 10 linkbacks to my website I should contact 40-80 related websites.

But then that will also create 40-80 links (with descriptions) on my links page (though all related).

Just don't want to get penalized by the SEs :-)

[ihelpyou]

If you are acquiring links for the search engines, you run the risk of trouble. If you are acquiring links because you wish to help your visitors, you should be just fine. There is no set definition of a link farm. If you question what you are doing, it's probably not a good thing to be doing.

[glengara]

For the links back you really want, you could put their links up, and click them a couple of times a day.
This should get their attention after a while, and make them more receptive to a request for a link-back.

[Matt B]

It's Enrico Palazzo !!!! :D

Welcome to the forums!

[enricopalazzo]

And he saved the Queen! :cheers:

Thanks for the tips; it's given me a starting point!

[Webmaster T]

Enrico, though not neccessarily creating a link farm IMHO, you aren't leveraging these beyond their PR value. I use a strategy which uses link architecture to induce indexing of interior pages. I have an index which always links to the related pages on the site on the same topic. This is where I also link to related sites.

This lowers the number of links on the page and narrows the keywords focus to just sites on the topic. This is IMHO, more appealing to others you are requesting a link from and the big bonus is it provides good pages for others to link to without draining PR since it is a one way link.

IMHO, links pages are often not good candidates for this sort of link since they aren't as focused on a specific subject. These are also often the pages I find in the SERPs for the terms I'm targeting. It also seems to encourage linking to interior pages rather than entry pages which will leverage PR further depending on the internal linking architecture.