Link Farms vs Directory Lists

What is going on with Directories? I had read somewhere, but I didn't follow up on it, that Google was deindexing some established directories. Is this true? As in they were deindexing all the pages but the main page. That sounds a bit hard to believe, do you have any info on this?

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L

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steveweber 16 years ago

If your niche is "dogs", do a search in Google for "dog directories". Those that rank well would be good choices...ones that Google respects.

I had not heard about any good directories having trouble.
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sparrow

16 years ago

I don't know about directories being deindexed, but from my testing the directories do not have the power they had last year

when I check for links showing up I see less and less of the directories showing up in the backlinks, so now I use them last as a means to breakup the diversity of links, many times I don't use them if I am crimped for time

Ed

Originally Posted by LeannaLuck

What is going on with Directories? I had read somewhere, but I didn't follow up on it, that Google was deindexing some established directories. Is this true? As in they were deindexing all the pages but the main page. That sounds a bit hard to believe, do you have any info on this?

Thanks
L

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1 reply

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Kurt

16 years ago

Originally Posted by sparrow

I don't know about directories being deindexed, but from my testing the directories do not have the power they had last year

when I check for links showing up I see less and less of the directories showing up in the backlinks, so now I use them last as a means to breakup the diversity of links, many times I don't use them if I am crimped for time

Ed

I agree with Ed...Use directories to diverisy your linking "footprint", but don't depend soley on them to build links.

You want your links to come from a wide variety of places.

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Kurt

16 years ago

So few people know the actual definition of a "link farm".

A link farm is a page of links that multiple webmasters publish on their sites for the purpose of gaining link popularity.

For example, 50 Warriors get together and each puts their link on a list. Then, all 50 Warriors put this page on their site.

This was a decent strategy 7-8 years ago, but hasn't worked since, as it is very easy to detect identical link pages. Since then, link farms have gotten a little more sohpisticated, such as using 3 way links, etc., but the general concept is the same.

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Dominic Anderton

16 years ago

Thanks for your explanation Kurt!

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greyhatter

16 years ago

Originally Posted by nickeura

Thanks for your explanation Kurt!

A link farm is a collection of blogs or sites that exchanges links among themselves. There are several ways to do this and several reasons to do it...

Link farms can be used to increase a targeted sites results in the SERPS by massively inflating the targeted sites number of incoming links.

Link farms can get the targeted site spidered quickly. As in under two hours by the big three.

Link farms can make passive income from PPC ads - and adsense is obviously not a good way to do this.

Link Farms can also get your site - or be themselves - delisted, banned, sandboxed or otherwise penalized if you're careless, if you google bowl a competitor, and/or if you're reported by an asshat.

Making a linkfarm is usually an automated process, but I do it manually and effectively, and haven't suffered any negative effects.

BlogSolution / Ultimate SEO blogging software is an example of software used to generate linkfarms automatically.

I am writing an ebook on how to use a whitehat/greyhat variant of link farming as a way to build links methodically. Watch for an eventual WSO from me, but it will be awhile. Right now I'm too busy making un-recommended, ineffective, oh-so-dangerous "link farms".

See Link farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Kurt

16 years ago

Originally Posted by greyhatter

A link farm is a collection of blogs or sites that exchanges links among themselves. There are several ways to do this and several reasons to do it...

Link farms can be used to increase a targeted sites results in the SERPS by massively inflating the targeted sites number of incoming links.

Link farms can get the targeted site spidered quickly. As in under two hours by the big three.

Link farms can make passive income from PPC ads - and adsense is obviously not a good way to do this.

Link Farms can also get your site - or be themselves - delisted, banned, sandboxed or otherwise penalized if you're careless, if you google bowl a competitor, and/or if you're reported by an asshat.

Making a linkfarm is usually an automated process, but I do it manually and effectively, and haven't suffered any negative effects.

BlogSolution / Ultimate SEO blogging software is an example of software used to generate linkfarms automatically.

I am writing an ebook on how to use a whitehat/greyhat variant of link farming as a way to build links methodically. Watch for an eventual WSO from me, but it will be awhile. Right now I'm too busy making un-recommended, ineffective, oh-so-dangerous "link farms".

See Link farm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I give the ORIGINAL definition. The definition has evolved over the years, as has the technique to produce link farms.

But the basic concept is to have a page of links shared by multiple webmasters. 3waylinks is a perfect example of how the concept evolved. It's a link farm, but they are trying to use 3way links to cover the fingerprints of all webmasters sharing a list of virtually the same bunch of links. It is this sharing that is the link farm.

BTW, the description given by Wikipedia pretty much backs up my definition. Here's the first paragraph:

On the World Wide Web, a link farm is any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other site in the group. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called spamdexing or spamexing). Other link exchange systems are designed to allow individual websites to selectively exchange links with other relevant websites and are not considered a form of spamdexing.

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greyhatter 16 years ago

Originally Posted by Kurt

I give the ORIGINAL definition. The definition has evolved over the years, as has the technique to produce link farms...

I obviously didn't know that. Good to know!
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greyhatter

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Kurt

... the basic concept is to have a page of links shared by multiple webmasters. 3waylinks is a perfect example of how the concept evolved. It's a link farm, but they are trying to use 3way links to cover the fingerprints of all webmasters sharing a list of virtually the same bunch of links. It is this sharing that is the link farm...

Not to nitpick, but I would differentiate between a link exchange and a link farm not only depending upon the purpose of the links, but also on the purpose of the websites. A link exchange can be legitimate and innocent. It is conducted between individual webmasters while a link farm is created by an individual to benefit their own property or multiple properties.

For example if I create a SEO website and add banners to it that point to other SEO websites from other people, it is called a banner exchange and all it does is allow us to exchange traffic. The flow between the exchanges member sites is usually equal or random. Google shouldn't be delisting these unless the link exchange is being abused with fake/purposeless websites.

If however I create a group of websites with short articles and with (or without) contextual ads or affiliate ads--- say, one each on a blogger blog (or ten), a yahoo 360 blog, a live spaces blog, squidoo, hubpages, as well as new facebook/myspace/bebo/friendster/linked in/twitter profiles all linking to each other and all with a one way link to my (monetized) wordpress blog, THAT is a link farm because the majority of the websites created were only created to pass links to my monetized site. Maybe the more precise term is Splog farm. If the individual sites have no utility other than to create links to the other sites, then they should be considered disposable and probably won't last long.

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Kurt

14 years ago

Originally Posted by greyhatter

Not to nitpick, but I would differentiate between a link exchange and a link farm not only depending upon the purpose of the links, but also on the purpose of the websites. A link exchange can be legitimate and innocent. It is conducted between individual webmasters while a link farm is created by an individual to benefit their own property or multiple properties.

For example if I create a SEO website and add banners to it that point to other SEO websites from other people, it is called a banner exchange and all it does is allow us to exchange traffic. The flow between the exchanges member sites is usually equal or random. Google shouldn't be delisting these unless the link exchange is being abused with fake/purposeless websites.

If however I create a group of websites with short articles and with (or without) contextual ads or affiliate ads--- say, one each on a blogger blog (or ten), a yahoo 360 blog, a live spaces blog, squidoo, hubpages, as well as new facebook/myspace/bebo/friendster/linked in/twitter profiles all linking to each other and all with a one way link to my (monetized) wordpress blog, THAT is a link farm because the majority of the websites created were only created to pass links to my monetized site. Maybe the more precise term is Splog farm. If the individual sites have no utility other than to create links to the other sites, then they should be considered disposable and probably won't last long.

The definition of a link farm has been distorted over the years by people thinking as you do.

Again, a link farm is when a group of webmasters that get together and create a page containing all their links and each posts this page on their site, resulting in duplicate pages of links.

This method was discovered and dealt with by Google years ago, and has somewhat evolved so it isn't that easy to detect. Again, systems such as 3 way links are based on the link farm concept, but randomize the links to a degree that Google can't (hopefully) see that it's really a link farm. But members still put up pages with links to other sites in exchange for links back to their own site. This is a link farm.

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greyhatter

16 years ago

Originally Posted by Kurt

So few people know the actual definition of a "link farm".

A link farm is a page of links that multiple webmasters publish on their sites for the purpose of gaining link popularity.

For example, 50 Warriors get together and each puts their link on a list. Then, all 50 Warriors put this page on their site.
...

That's a "link exchange". Usually it was (is) done through a centralized website, forum, or application that was (is!) in charge of adding people to it. Also similar to a banner exchange. Old school, but both are still used for driving traffic between (niche) sites.

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Kurt

16 years ago

Originally Posted by greyhatter

That's a "link exchange". Usually it was (is) done through a centralized website, forum, or application that was (is!) in charge of adding people to it. Also similar to a banner exchange. Old school, but both are still used for driving traffic between (niche) sites.

Yes, a link farm is a form of link exchange, and there are other ways to have a link exchange, also. However, it doesn't change my definition. A link farm is when a number of webmasters add their link to a page, then each put that page of links on each of their sites.

Webmasters have modified the idea, using things like randomizing the links a bit, and other things, but the concept is the same.

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zoobie

16 years ago

of course they are difference. I suggest you to stay away from link farms
esp. those FFA.....

quality directories usually got edited although some of them are free.

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francophile

16 years ago

Many directories have lost page rank - mostly those which are "paid". There are few paid directories that do not seem to have been affected like Yahoo Directory!

Many directories have PR on the home page only - dig deep to see if categories have PR

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crystalq

16 years ago

I recommend you outsource your link directory submissions
their are many people and companies that offer services to do so.

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ezimedia

16 years ago

HI

There is no real order to links in a link farm, with good directories you will find your listing in categories and all sorted , which is good for all end users.

Tom

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captivereef

16 years ago

linkmarket.com is a link farm and i beleive it was the reason Google banned some of my sites from the adsense network. I used them when i was starting out two years ago, forgot i had them on some sites and Google eventually found them!

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sunnysweety

14 years ago

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Please let me know if you would be interested in pursuing this conversation further... we have Natural and Quality websites related to Casino, Blackjack, Poker, bingo, Sports games and backgammon related...

We would be happy to share the site details upon your email response.

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For chat (sunny DOT webnet AT gmail DOT com)

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franky123

14 years ago

Link farms and directory lists are completely different. Link farm is considered as a spam while directory is a form of site which organize sites as category. Therefore it is good.

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Franky

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hery

14 years ago

I am interested in link exchange with quality casino sites.Please do mail your all sites at herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com.
Msn - herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com
gmail- webmasterhery(at)gmail(dot)com

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hery

14 years ago

I am interested in link exchange with quality casino sites.Please do mail your all sites at herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com.
Msn - herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com
gmail- webmasterhery(at)gmail(dot)com

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hery

14 years ago

I am interested in link exchange with quality casino sites.Please do mail your all sites at herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com.
Msn - herry(at)dccasinos(dot)com
gmail- webmasterhery(at)gmail(dot)com