Link Farming

[helen.carter]

Does anyone know what link farming is? I have heard its not very ethical. How does one go about it? Is it illegal?

[david.cowen]

Link farming was done long time back and it isn’t very popular now although some people still do it. Yes it isn’t very ethical although not illegal. Link farming is a type of search engine optimization technique which comes under black hat, basically a grey region kind of SEO.
Link farms are a group of websites where each site hyperlinks to every other site in the group. It was a kind of way of spamming the search engine’s index. It exploited the Inktomi’s dependency of the search engine on link popularity. But this problem has been removed from search engine long time back and it isn’t much helpful now.

[helen.carter]

what is black hat seo anyway???? i have just about heard enough of it

[maxbot1]

Black hat SEO includes all those SEO techniques which can be called unethical. The earlier search engines were not that smart and could be conned easily. These engines ran on simple algorithms which did not involve large number of criteria for assigning the search rankings. So basically about ten years back some people started to use some slightly unethical methods to increase the ranking of their websites.
Actually this was mainly seen in the adult sites of that time but later spread elsewhere as well. Basically at that time the main criteria for these search engines was the presence of key words. So what those sites did was that they filled large portions of their webpages with those keywords. But these keywords were not visible to the naked eye. Hundreds of repetitions of the same keywords were put in the blank regions of the page with the same color as the background. So the search engine then detected these keywords so many times and automatically pushed the ranking of this site up.
But that was the old time. Don’t try this today Helen. First of all the search engines are not that easily fooled these days and this method called keyword stuffing is no longer in practice but some morons still seem to do it. It’s quite silly really considering it is easily spotted now and it can make the ranking of your site go down considerably. In certain cases such sites are black listed and their names are struck of the search engine’s index.
This was only one part of black hat SEO. There are a lot of other ways to do it as well. Some of them are quite innovative.

[helen.carter]

hey maxbot you do have quite a lot of knowledge? can you help me in picking a seo software?

[maxbot1]

If you want my serious advice then you have asked the wrong question. You should have asked me to talk you out of it and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
To begin with, softwares are not that reliable. For example if you make one mistake by hand, it will remain just at one place but a single error can get amplified even a thousand times y using a software. Another thing if you do decide to use a software then make sure you know exactly how it works. Sometimes such softwares can be sneaky in the way they function. And that can cause your site to be red flagged by the search engines. Also these softwares are pretty common these days and so a no. of sites are using the same pattern by the softwares which can lead to close scrutiny of your site.
Overall these softwares are not that effective either. There has never really been a huge increase in search engine ranking using a software till date. My advice is to do it the scut way.

[bob477]

I completely disagree with you maxbot. I think using softwares is the wise choice in this day and age. When everything in today’s world is automated so why not your search engine optimization.

The best thing about the softwares available today is that they come in the form of packs. A pack will include a number of different softwares, each of which serves a different purpose and together they form a complete solution to all your seo needs.

A standard pack will include a wide variety of softwares to suit all your requirements. Generally there is one software which monitors the ranking of your site, another will check its link popularity, an indexation tool which lists the pages which are indexed by the popular search engines, a link exchanger tool which basically grows your link network plus a software which analyses your site comprehensively.

The manual process is too expensive and consumes a lot more time than any seo software. Plus I always trust technology more than any human being. I mean these days it is considered human to make mistakes, the word human is a synonym for making errors.

[cameron.fisher]

Search engine optimization is becoming more and more technical with search engine algorithms becoming more complex in sorting ands stacking (as I like to call it!) websites. Linking is one technique that can really work you to get the attention of the search engines. Back linking is still a very powerful way of catching the interest of the search engines and turning your site into an authority on a particular topic.

Whoever said Link Farming is over surely isn’t living in the real world!

Applied in moderation, link farming is an excellent technique to organize to bring in traffic to your website and link up your content and articles with other sites available. People! I have tried it and it makes great business sense for any article or content and especially fro content like news and blogs that need to be continuously updated and follow-ups written on it!

Considering that you all have already exhausted quite some effort in covering the links for the previous article, the new links that you give will be an easy reference point for your readers to link to other pages and help them in getting a complete picture about the topic at hand, And of course! the page rankings will also improve dramatically.

The only thing is that the links should be relevant to the content on your page! C’mon, now that is something basic….if you link a lingerie website with a golf site then of course Google is going to get cheesed off! In fact anyone with basic brains would know that…its not rocket science dudes!.

I personally do feel that the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, BUT….and a big but is the knowledge to use it properly.

Now what is good for the readers must also be good for the SEO. If the links that you put, make sense for the visitors and make your content comprehensive then visitors will flock it! That is a certainty.
Instead of wasting your time in chasing customers…why not get good links and higher ranking to generate traffic.
Believe you me Search engine spiders will gobble up your content. Links will come looking for you. Wow!

[bob477]

Remember, popularity of your site does not grow on Farms (pun intended)…. Not even on Link farm; it has to be earned through good quality content and genuine hard work!!

Well , we all know that link farm link up one site with another just to catch the fancy of search engine spiders and the sole purpose of their existence ( and a rather lowly one , I must say…) is to hike the popularity of the site. And like you’ve said most dudes (or rather duds!) link up just for the heck of it…perfectly unrelated sites with unrelated information to just about any site….it is so crappy and so very irritating. And contrary to your WOW factor, this sometimes leads to the sites being banned by the very search engines they want to manipulate. Ha-Ha! What an irony!

Like everything else in the net, some dude has kept a name for this practice also …it is called Link Stuffing….imagine stuffing your mouth with food, what would happen? You would gag for sure and that is exactly, what will happen to your site with the link farming technique. Your over- linking will gag the search engine algorithms and you will cease to exist for it ! Sounds like the end of the world!

Google absolutely detests these Link Farms, (as I hate pile-ons) and puts them in the category of spam. In fact, Google hates them so much, guys; that your site might just get removed from the index as well! Some , smarty pants ; do think that they can circumvent the Google and continue their link farming , but anybody with an iota of brains….should consider removing all outbound links from their sites( for their own good of course!)

Ok! Ok! Now don’t start yelling that I am overreacting…’cause I know it for sure that link farms are a dangerous weapon to play around with .You never know when it might just fire back at you.

You had better be on your guard! Many spooky sites guarantee you some money in exchange of getting a certain number of links to your sites. If you happen to sign up for such a service (then May GOD Help you) because that is a violation of the code of internet ethics( if there is such a thing ) and is clearly a Link Farm , which will get your site labeled as Spam!

[sdouglas]

Hey !all you out there sweating it out about Link farming , just wanna tell you about some do’s and don’ts about it and how you could get the max advantage from it.

Symbiotic linking – I scratch, your back you scratch mine! Period. Contact other websites to give you the opportunity to provide a link to their website and you do the same in return. Fun, easy and effective. However, do ensure that the sites are compatible. Don’t link a food site with a garment selling site!

Only one way linking – Unlike the two–way process above, stick to the good ol’ one-way linking. Write articles and submit to article directories and put in your link in the signature or when you post something on forums (like this) or any comments posted on blogs etc., you can provide a link back to your site. Yipee, it is simple!

One way linking is far more powerful and gives better rankings than two way one. Remember! Simply garnering links to your site is not enough; you must keep on updating those links and keep adding to your content so that the search engines know that is a dynamic site and not just a dead one.
Stay away from “Link Farms” as far as possible, if by mistake you do link to them, and then de-link before the damage is done. I like to think of Link Farms like black holes that will gobble up your site!

There are numerous free link directories where it is possible to gain good quality links to your site; also, you can use up the articles directories that can give a number of related and useful sites.

You can have paid links to these directories as well and they turn out to be quite handy! Paid directories often accept links in a matter of hours or days, while free ones take months to accept submissions. In addition, they are not always accepted.
Always try to put your site in a category that has few sites listed …common sense! It will enhance your sites visibility and get you the fullest value for your linking.

It ain’t so tough, just use a little brains…
 Stick to your theme and relevant content sites.
 Links should be well coordinated and coherent with your theme.
 Don’t link indiscriminately as this dilutes the content and irritates Search engines.
 Stay away from automated link generators that emails to other webmasters and offer to trade links.
 Send a personalized email incase you want a two-way link.
 Put links in the content page an within the article and not necessarily at the end of the page. This makes your linking far more effective and search engines give you your much needed rankings as well.

So happy Link farming, netizens!!