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Link farms - fact or fiction

by clock
8 replies
Much has been touted by the adverse use of link farms and how they can affect ranking.

I have been doing some research and have checked that one company is listing top of google rankings (in my country anyway) for 6 out of 10 diff sites - run by the same company

Now, ALL the websites, bar one, uses the exact same Class C IP range - viz 196.xx.xx.xx

In fact, it gets better, or worse, the second octet if the IP adresses are the same too!!!! - viz 196.220.xx.xx

Now I would like to hear some reasonable comments from the fundis out there to help me make sense in what I, for now, see Link Farms are a Myth
#fact #farms #fiction #link
  • Profile picture of the author Shazia Mirza
    I don't really see how this has anything to do with Link Farms.

    I have misunderstood you. But I still think Link Farms are bad. I once sold a site on Flippa and a link farm pointed to it. The person lost all the value of SERP the website had in less than 2 weeks.
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    • Profile picture of the author clock
      What I am saying is that the entire group of websites are backlinked to each other - different niches - but still backlinked all the same.

      Is this not a link farm???????
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  • Profile picture of the author clock
    Originally Posted by MardelInno View Post

    Problem with link farms is that they simply arent reliable, google allways finds out.

    They are nice for a quick boost though
    These sites have been at the top of the rankings for the past 4 months (well, since I started paying attention anyway) so can't really see that being "a quick boost"
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonmorgan
    I also don't see what this has to do with link farms. I interlink many of my sites and many of them also rank top 10 for their primary keywords plus plenty of long-tails.

    According to the man himself, Matt Cutts, interlinking your sites isn't a problem. Interlinking 1000 sites could be a problem. He covers the topic in one of his older videos. Truth or misdirection, you decide.
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    I'm all about that bass.

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    • Profile picture of the author clock
      Originally Posted by jasonmorgan View Post

      I also don't see what this has to do with link farms. I interlink many of my sites and many of them also rank top 10 for their primary keywords plus plenty of long-tails.

      According to the man himself, Matt Cutts, interlinking your sites isn't a problem. Interlinking 1000 sites could be a problem. He covers the topic in one of his older videos. Truth or misdirection, you decide.
      What I am after actually whether this is an accepted practise. It most definitely is working for this individual.

      I would like to do the same but don't want the SE's seeing this as a link farm

      And on that topic, it would then seem obvious using one host is also an accepted practise since the particular IP's all resolve to the same hosting provider
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      • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
        I think you may need to tweak your definition of a "link farm"...

        There's a difference between interlinking working content sites, on the same host or not, and sites created for the sole purpose of posting links.

        One example of a link farm might be the reciprocal link directories that were very popular a few years ago. You would post a link to the directory on your site, and in turn would be allowed to post a link to your site on the directory.

        The entire content of most directories of this nature was pages and pages of unrelated URLs, with nothing of any real value to a visitor.

        What it seems to boil down to is...

        > Do things with the aim of enhancing the user experience, and Google (and other SE to a lesser extent) rewards you.

        > Do things with the aim of tricking or gaming the search engines to the detriment of the user experience and you get either ignored or penalized.
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        • Profile picture of the author clock
          Originally Posted by JohnMcCabe View Post

          I think you may need to tweak your definition of a "link farm"...

          There's a difference between interlinking working content sites, on the same host or not, and sites created for the sole purpose of posting links.

          One example of a link farm might be the reciprocal link directories that were very popular a few years ago. You would post a link to the directory on your site, and in turn would be allowed to post a link to your site on the directory.

          The entire content of most directories of this nature was pages and pages of unrelated URLs, with nothing of any real value to a visitor.

          What it seems to boil down to is...

          > Do things with the aim of enhancing the user experience, and Google (and other SE to a lesser extent) rewards you.

          > Do things with the aim of tricking or gaming the search engines to the detriment of the user experience and you get either ignored or penalized.
          Thanks John for making that clear - and I have just "tweaked" my definition of a link farm
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  • Profile picture of the author jonibravo
    It is due to backlinking. To have best position in google try to have best backlinking of your site. It will help you to achieve the position you required. So do it
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