link farm is a network of facilitated the stabilization of
sites that link to other listings for online business
sites for the sole purpose websites having few natural links
of increasing link popularity. from more stable sites.
This is when a website gets
hundreds of links to unrelated Link popularity is used by most
sites in exchange for reciprocal search engines to come up with a
links. This is termed as spamming ranking order for search results.
and any website who relates to However, at the time link farms
link farms is penalized by came to be, the Inktomi engine
removal from a search engine's was maintaining two indexes. The
index. primary index produced search
results that are limited to about
Backgrounder on Link Farms 100,000,000 listings thus pages
with few inbound links fell out
Link farms were originally of the index on a regular basis.
developed by search engine While the handling of link farm
optimizers to take advantage of exchange was informal at the
the Inktomi search engine's start, several service companies
dependence on link popularity. It were eventually founded to handle
was targeted for manipulation automated registration,
with the use of link farms categorization and link page
because of the fact that it was updates to member websites.
used by a number of independent
but popular search engines. The The coming of the Google search
most popular search engines engine paved the way for the use
during that time - Yahoo! also of a link weighting scheme called
used Inktomi results as a PageRank. The PageRank algorithm
supplement to its own directory assigns more weight to links that
search feature. Link farms it determines as more valuable
than others. Link farming was identify specific attributes
used to help member pages to associated with link farms thus
increase their PageRank. This filtering those pages from
soon became the subject of indexing and search results.
manipulation by unscrupulous There were instances where entire
webmasters who continue to domains had to be removed to
receive inbound linkage but found prevent the potential influences
ways to hide outbound links if of link farms on search results.
not totally avoid posting any
link at all to their sites. There Link farm-influenced crawling
came a need for link farm diminished as search engines
managers to implement quality increased their capacity to index
controls and require member more sites. It became unnecessary
compliance to rules that were for link farms to help sites
installed to ensure fairness. retain their positions in primary
indexes. However, it remained a
As a result, alternative link popular tool to increase PageRank
farm products emerged such as the or perceived equivalent values.
link-finding software that The Inktomi technology has since
identifies potential reciprocal become a part of Yahoo! while the
link partners. This made possible term "Link Farm" is now widely
the sending of template-based considered as derogatory.
e-mails that offered link
exchanges. Directory-like link There is still an ongoing debate
pages were created for those as to the value of using PageRank
websites intent on building link in determining search results
popularity as well as PageRank. ranking. Reputable search engines
The link farm movement was are one in recommending that
actively countered by search webmasters request for relevant
engines as they sought to links to their sites instead of
participating in link farms. numerous internal links will be
Sites that participate in link interpreted as a link farm.
farms run the risk of having
their search rankings penalized. A link farm is composed of a
group of web pages that hyperlink
Link Farm Spam Page or Not? to every other web page in the
group. It can be manually created
Link farms usually refer to sites but is most often created through
with an almost boundless list of automated programs and services.
links to other websites rather It is sometimes called spamdexing
than links from page to page as it is a form of spamming the
within a site. Relevancy to a index of a search engine. A term
site is not a major consideration that is often associated with it
in determining the links as the is the "spaghetti code" which is
major purpose of linking is to a code with a complex and tangled
get a high ranking among search control structure that uses
engines. The provisions of good unstructured branching
information to users cease to be constructs.
the goal of these websites as
they concentrate on attaining The algorithmic principle that
search popularity through the puts emphasis on the voting power
sheer number of links. of "authority sites" lies behind
the manipulated processes of link
When is a specific website said farms. There is that assumption
to be participating in a link that related pages link to each
farm? The current indication other and authoritative pages
seems to be pointing at having tend to link to other
not more than 100 links on a page authoritative pages. Conversely,
as a safe measure. There are being linked to spam sites or
apprehensions of whether having sites that use Black-Hat SEO
degrades the reputation of any likely to be good as well. It
site. Association with poorly aims to cut down on spam and
reputed sites affects a site's deliver the real content that is
search engine positioning as it desired by the searcher.
stands to be categorized as an
irrelevant site. There are a number of ways to
ensure that a website's link
As spammers continue to go around directory does not end up being
the valid purpose of linking, the categorized as another form of a
value of reciprocal linking link farm. Incorporating a link
continue to decrease. Too many directory into a website has its
irrelevant links provide no value own advantages but caution should
and can be seen as spam by human be taken so as not to have too
experts and search engines. A many outbound links on a page
link directory with no clear, that dilutes its value. If a
organized and distinct categories website's links are very much
of links can be interpreted as a varied and tend to be unrelated,
link farm especially if there are they will need to be categorized
already more than 50 links on a to become relevant to each other.
page.
The use of clear, concise titles
TrustRank is used to counter the and descriptions for categories
various techniques employed to will help searchers (humans and
achieve higher rankings than search engines' spiders alike)
actually deserved in a search understand what a particular
engine's result. It uses a category is all about so that the
technique that manually measure of relevancy can out
identifies reputable seed pages rightly be determined. It is not
and uses their link structure to a requirement to agree to all
discover other pages that are link exchange requests especially
if the requesting site cannot be under, or moved. These are
considered a good representation situations beyond anyone's
of a site's theme and values. It control so it is best for a
is highly recommended that website to work hard on keeping
regular follow-up on approved its links and contents relevant
link exchanges is done to so as to bring continuous
determine the status of the links qualified traffic to itself. Link
and determine whether continued farms may be considered obsolete
linkage with them is still in a sense but it continuous to
acceptable. It is possible that pop-up in different forms at
although some links present present.
themselves initially as good
links have been banned, gone
About the Author:
http://www.theinternetone.net
Read more articles by:
Danny Wirken
Article Source: www.iSnare.com
