It's all well and good to know that you shouldn't link to link farms, but how do you know if a site is one or not? My general rule is to think about how I'd feel if I clicked a link and landed on the page - if I thought I'd be annoyed, I won't link to it. Regardless of whether it's a link farm or just an annoying site. But there are some things that can tip you that the site isn't a good idea to link to. For one thing, if they solicit you asking you to post 100+ links on your site, don't do it. They're essentially asking you to turn your site into a link farm, which will get you banned from Google.
Explore Web Design / HTML
Must Reads
Most Popular
©2012 About.com. All rights reserved.
A part of The New York Times Company.
Link farms are indeed poison. I am quite fussy about whom I link to. I frequently get requests for reciprocal links and I ignore 99% of them. If the person writing has similar material and a good ranking I consider it. The rest go to the recycle bin.
Also keep in mind that the sites you link to and are linked from all make up your ‘neighborhood’. If your site is deemed part of a bad nieghborhood that can adversely affect your site.
Yeah, I agree…
It’s worth knowing that while one gets penalized for linking to a farm, there is danger Google will ban you if a farm links to your page, as it is supposed that one has no control over who link to them.
Many Link Builders did not know if the site is link farm or not as long as they submitted your site.
I also agree. They can really hurt your site. Thank you very much for the post.
You are absolutely right. i agree with you.
I like your article.
Thanks
I agree that linking to the web farm can hurt you, but never other way around. Webmasters have no control on who is linking to them, so search engines can’t and obviously won’t penalize for that
someone told me that in other countries you can still get away with link farms, Google doesn’t really police it because search volume is so low, unlike in the US
Be ware of the side effect of link farm.. if google catch you listed on link farm, you PR will be gone within few seconds…
I agree with you. Good article.
It is for the first time I heard about link farm. Thanks for sharing this.
Yes, I agree with you.. Good information
What if I am an SEO company and I have a few clients who all link to one another? Is this considered link farming? I would like to know so that in the future, when I get new clients, I know if this is a good or bad idea.
Thank You
Link farm is dangerous to play with… A lot of so called seo company that outsourced their work to unknown ‘seo specialists’, and they link client’s sites to link farm… so always check out your seo company and make sure they don’t link your site to those link farms.
Why Google does not banns the link farm site rather than site link it?
@jone: Google does penalize the farm, in fact, more than the links on it. But many link farms are set up so that the links are added by the link holders themselves. And many link farms are set up as deliberate collaboration between site owners to get more incoming links. This is what Google and other search engines frown on.
If your site was added to a list of links by someone else, then chances are that site isn’t really a link farm. That incoming link may not net you much in terms of ranking, but you won’t be penalized for it.
I don’t even waste my time on reciprocal links anymore. It’s much better to create your own quality links from social media profiles, open forums or to comment on blogs. But for real link authority, find a quality site in your related market or niche and purchase a contextual link or a banner ad on that site. Not only do you get a good link for SEO purposes, but you can also get decent targeted traffic. Thanks for the post.