What is a link farm and how are they treated by search engines?

[DGSEO]

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?

[DGSEO]

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!

[StalkerB]

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

[DGSEO]

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!

[StalkerB]

Or get on there too...

[DGSEO]

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?

[StalkerB]

That's not a link farm

You just described a free directory

[StalkerB]

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.

[saibose]

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.