Internet Marketing Tycoon

**mikuaraman** · 08-26-2004, 04:02 PM

I have heard many people say that you shouldn't use link farms (a.k.a. reciprocal links), but I have never seen a good reason given why you shouldn't use them. I usually hear something like: "don't bother using them they are a waste of time". But is there anything really bad about doing them? For example, could google blacklist your site because of a link farm?

Any thought on this?

Miku Araman
Free things to do in Las Vegas!

**GuyFromChicago** · 08-28-2004, 02:16 PM

Link farm = bad neighborhood.

Might not hurt you today (or ever) but why take a chance?

**mikuaraman** · 08-28-2004, 04:22 PM

Because it might result in better PageRank/WebRank which results in better search results which results in more traffic.

Miku Araman
http://www.vegasfreebie.com/ - Free things to do in Las Vegas

**tntcheats** · 08-28-2004, 09:57 PM

I don't think that Google's unfair enough to blacklist your website because of a linkfarm.

However

Quote:

Don't participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html
Is good enough for me.

**mikuaraman** · 08-29-2004, 09:23 PM

Thanks for the link to Google's guidelines. That's a big help.

Miku Araman
http://www.vegasfreebie.com/ - Free things to do in Las Vegas

**tntcheats** · 08-30-2004, 06:57 AM

When in doubt, always go straight to the source

**GuyFromChicago** · 09-03-2004, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mikuaraman

Because it might result in better PageRank/WebRank which results in better search results which results in more traffic.

Miku Araman
http://www.vegasfreebie.com/ - Free things to do in Las Vegas

Yea and robbing a bank might result in you having extra money...but you could also end up jail.

The short term potential for a gain in traffic is offset by the long term potential of being "in trouble" with Google.

You'll never have problems with a link farm that links to you - just make sure you are not linking from your site to link farms.

**phpservers** · 09-03-2004, 09:46 PM

classification of a link farm is based on the ratio between content and outgoiing links - there should be a lot more content then links.
I know a couple of link farms that are completely legitimate and helpful so even the classification is wrong - although google is smarter than that :\

**GuyFromChicago** · 09-08-2004, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phpservers

classification of a link farm is based on the ratio between content and outgoiing links - there should be a lot more content then links.

I don't know about that...wouldn't that make dmoz a link farm?

**blueowl** · 09-30-2004, 10:27 PM

Does this mean that we should not link to 'link farms'

Seems unlikely, as these can often be valuable resources.