What is a link farm and how are they treated by search engines?
-
I notice one of my competitors who ranks prominantly has very odd looking backlinks. They come from MANY sites which all contain directories that look identical. Each site contains the exact same directory - only the design of the page is different. There is no theme or focus to the directories - they list everything from pencils to fencing. This competitor has very few links from outside of this directory but again it has MANY links from this directory. So my question is, does this qualify as a "link farm". And then, how do search engines treat "link farms?
-
Thanks, Barry! That last paragraph is rich and very helpful. Google won't likely look at an individual case like this because they are trying to fix this kind of problem by tweaking algorithms... Makes perfect sense. I'll likely make the report but set my expectation levels low.
Thanks to everyone for the great, quick feedback on my question!
-
If it is those sites that are being used to rank then you either level the playing field by getting on them, remove him from the sites or remove the sites!
Sticking in a spam report can't hurt.
And Blekko's probably discounted those sites as spam, they're quite good that way
When dealing with spammy competitors your options are limited, spam report or if you have a following you could blog about it and hope it gets in front of somebody in a position to make changes.
Realistically this sort of linking is the kind of thing Google wants to sort algorithmically, so won't see an immediate beat down on your competitor by reporting it; not sure what other options you have though
-
Thanks, Barry. Exactly the kind of advice I was looking for. : )
But seriously, is my only option submitting a spam report or are there other options? How do you all deal with competitors who use spammy tactics?
I notice Blekko doesn't rank this competitors site well at all. Actually, Blekko serps look like I'd expect them to if spammy tactics were treated as spammy tactics should be treated. Super clean serps (at least in my niche).
Anyway, any additional advice would be appreciated!
Thanks!
-
Or get on there too...
-
I first noticed these links about 6 months ago but I've watched this competitors site climb quickly over the last 12 months and I'm assuming they've had these links over 6 months. I had been advised that if these links were spammy Google would catch on and any benefit they had been getting would diminish. But as I said, it's been quite some time and they continue to hold their strong organic positions which is obviously a concern. So... what do you all suggest I do? Is it time to submit a spam report?
-
That's not a link farm
You just described a free directory
-
Technically a link farm is a group of sites that link to all the other sites in the farm. So A links to B & C, B links to A & C and C links to A & B.
Scale that up to 100 sites and you can kind of see what's going on.
Here's the Whiteboard Friday on it - http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboard-friday-link-farming
What you're describing may be a form of link farming, if your competitor has a link back to each of those directories. If not then it's just a ****ty directory and probably not doing a lot for him or won't be doing a lot in the very near future
You could submit a spam report to Google, but probably not going to get dealt with straight away.
-
A link farm is one that gives any website a link for free. Its also called a FFA or free for all. No creteris is needed to list a website in such websites.
Link farms are considered a black hat technique in terms of Google.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Links from sites with iffy link profiles?
So the site http://www.cadenas.de/ appears to have good decent scores from the various Moz ranks, but when I check out the site in OSE there are a lot of really sketchy links that jump out, online pharmacy/drug type links. I should also add that the negative links are seemingly going to a weird blog deep in the site and only appear when I select all links to the root domain in OSE. Everything about the site appears very legitimate except for the link profile which has me nervous. Would you guys pursue a link from this site?
Link Building | | CJ50 -
Linking between properties
I own 3 domains. One is my blog, one is my photography business site, and one is my graphic/web design site. They are all hosted on the same VPS account. I link between each site. Also, since the links are either in the nav, footer or sidebar, all pages from one page link to the homepage of each other. Is this an issue for SEO? Should I not be doing this? Would it be beneficial to use a no follow link instead if I'm to keep them?
Link Building | | studio35design0 -
Do links from between common sites you run count as "bad" links?
Hi everyone,
Link Building | | AMA-DataSet
Iv recently been asked to review a group of sites. There are 3 sites, each of these sites has a link to the other two sites within the footer or the navigation.
These site are about a similar topic each provides a different perceptive or aims at a specific section of the industry so its not like the links are to irreverent sites. However because the links are in a global section they are repeated thousands of times on each site and count for a large proportion of the link profile to each site, I don't think this is good practise and I want to remove them or at least add a no-follow but my client insists they are relevant to each other and doesn't not want the links removing. What would be best in this situation? remove them? no-follow them? or leave them? Thank you in advance,
Liam0 -
Is there a software to help me check whether the sites that i give link to, also place my link on their site (reciprocal link)?
When i exchange links with others, i usually put their link on my site hoping that they'll do the same. Since it's impossible to check all sites whose link i have placed on my page to see if they have put a link back to me, i was wondering whether there is a kind of software to help me do that!
Link Building | | isidora0 -
Avg Secure Search using it as a link
i have heard about people using avg secure search as a link which is strange and i have also checked into some sites who are getting links from this, how can this be and if this is correct how can we all get links from this search engine.
Link Building | | ClaireH-1848860 -
"gimme links" = easy to fill out profile/personal reputation links that offer a do-follow anchor text flexible link
I'm doing some SEO for small niche service sites...and aside from niche directories and some light article marketing and local search directories (yelp, etc) there really isn't a budget for content generation. I really only have a budget for profile/submission links. What are some sites where you can quite easily fill out a personal profile with an anchor text variable link that may not be THAT juicy but will stick (i.e. not a spam/fake profile type of link, but something like Linkedin). I'll start with giving away 1 www.istockphoto.com Any others that aren't obvious?
Link Building | | ilyaelbert0 -
Links below the snippet
Hello, Does anybody know how can i obtain links under the snippet (see the example in the image attached) ? Thank you in advance! Cosmin zXhsG
Link Building | | cosmin_bicoiu0