Link Farming
-
Are link farms still bad? I still am not sure about this question. I know that some people still do link farms. If they are bad, wouldn't a directory be considered a link farm? For instance I can get my site on a .EDU, but it will just be a list of links. Is that bad?
-
I believe there is a significant difference between a link farm and a directory. And although there are likely going to be differences in how everyone views the two, the basic differences to me are:
Link Farms:
-No editorial discretion in who is linked to
-No editorial discretion in how one is linked to
-Often generally require a return link or triangular link
-Free for all approach to posting a link
-Often no real review process in terms of quality
-Do not have clearly defined guidelines for the process
-Allow you to link in any way you want (link anchor)
-Do not have content and promotional guidelines for content
-Created specifically to manipulate SERPs via surgical text link manipulationQuality Directories (I believe there are about 15 total of these on the Internet myself)
-Editorial discretion in who is linked to
-Editorial discretion in how one is linked to
-do not require any link to be listed
-Review process in terms of quality
-Have clearly defined guidelines for the process
-Link to you as a business
-Have content and promotional guidelines for content
-Created to provide value to searchersI would stay away from link farms to be sure.
-
it's just a page on a .edu full of cool sites that the person likes.
-
For instance I can get my site on a .EDU, but it will just be a list of links. Is that bad?
I don't know what your definition of a link farm is but mine is a site that has at least a few SEO links stuffed into every page.
What you are describing to me could be a curated list of outstanding resources done by an .edu librarian or professor. Those can be some of the best links on this planet... but without more info we can only guess. It could be an untended forum page or a student site stuffed with naughty links.
-
Google's PR doesn't mean anything to SEO. Use Open Site Explorer to really evaluate the site. (They could have just purchased that domain with a high PR). I would also spend a bit of time and evaluate the other links you would be grouped with. Again, if they are quality sites in your industry, then that may be alright. But if they are just a bunch of spammy sites, then keep away.
-
Well it will have unique content on it. Perhaps I will put more on it than just links than
-
It's all about quality unique content. The reason a lot of .edu's do well is because they have a lot of domain authority and a lot of them have been around for a long time. The directories that pass good link juice have this going for them as well. If you create a link farm on an .edu domain, you won't be fooling the search engines. It'll be a brand new site with no links to it that has no unique content which links out to a bunch of sites which may also be spammy, aka a link farm.
I'm not sure what your goal is with this site. If your goal in creating the site is to give an SEO bonus to these site you're linking to, I doubt it do any good. If your goal is to create a site that is a directory that is useful to people, and people start using it, linking to it, sharing it, then it could work. If your goal is to put up a site that has some links for your own enjoyment, go for it! If Google thinks your site is a link farm, it's not like they're going to dispatch agents to your house in the middle of the night or anything.
-
But if it's a PR 5 isn't that a solid link? Who cares if there are other links on the page.
-
Yes, they are bad. Keep away and focus on good quality links.
If it is a reputable directory with good DA (Domain Authority) and PA (Page Authority) and relevant to your site, then go ahead. Google's latest updates are really focusing on quality links from quality sites.
In the long run it will do more damage then good.
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
-
We are moving to HTTPS and wanted to know if our link building efforts were in vain or will the link juice pass to HTTPS?
We are switching to HTTPS and want to make sure the links we've gotten in the past will still transfer since they are pointing to HTTP? I'd hate to go back through and ask people to please add an s to the link.
Link Building | | bryant25560 -
Spammy links
Hi Guys, I have a case which seems to occur more often for our customers. The websites of our customers seem to receive tons of backlinks from websites all over the world (China, Russia, Ukrain, etc). It’s spam we never asked for, we didn’t buy any dodgy linkbuilding packages or anything. Do any of you guys have experience with this matter? We try to disavow the links but it takes too much time and we will never manage to disavow 100% of all links. Examples are www.keukensduitsland.nl and www.m2beveiliging.nl Hope anyone has experience and maybe even solutions for this matter. Thanks!
Link Building | | Happy-SEO1 -
Are links from charities really better than 'normal' links.
Hi Guys. Just wondering about this idea that links from Charities are particularly good. I've heard people say that links from .org sites are particularly strong. But anyone can get a .org domain, it's just that charities tend to use them more often. Right? I just don't get the logic. Can anyone give more detail about this? Is it a myth? Is there quality info on this topic I can check out? We're working with several charities at the moment, and they all seem happy to blog and link to us...so I just wanted to know a little more. Isaac.
Link Building | | isaac6630 -
Paying for a Link
I realize it is bad to pay for a link but is it bad to pay for a link on a page that ranks you 1 to 10 againist your competitor, shows a screen shot of your and lists Pros and Cons of your site? Is this sort of paid link different somehow?
Link Building | | Studio330 -
Why aren't links to my site from YouTube showing up in my link reports?
Our company is paying for a service to create hundreds of videos/month for us with links back to our primary domain. If I go to YouTube I see the videos with the links, but YouTube does not show in my link reports. Why not?
Link Building | | jtroia0 -
How to beat This with Links?
Hello, So i am trying to beat this website gujratdetectives.com/ with a new website which has no backlinks as of now.
Link Building | | hardik_hrc
Now, I checked in open explorer that this site has many moderate level links. No high authority links but the problem is these links they all have title as the search keyword "detective in Gujarat" so maybe this is why this site rests on the top of this search keyword. So if building authority links into a different domain(Not detective related) with very high PR but WITHOUT title of relevancy. Anchor text would be the keyword but not the title of page. So the question is will those authority sites beat this gujratdetectives.com/ ???0 -
Which is better - A) links from multiple IP addresses, or B) Links with more associated social signals?
If you had to choose: A) 100 links contained in posts on 100 PR2* blogs, all on separate IP addresses, where none of the posts had associated social signals, or B) 100 links contained in posts within a single PR2* blog (single IP address), where each of the posts had 20 associated social signals, Which would you choose to increase your SERP performance? *I chose PR2 so that PageRank would not be a factor in the decision.
Link Building | | JohnScottDixon0 -
Internal Linking - 100 plus links
Hi Everyone, I have a question of how the on-page links are being counted. Say you have a page with a warning of having too many on page links (100+). How are all of these links counted? Let's say there are only 5 links on that page. Do the links on each of those pages count too and so on and so forth? I just want to make sure I have wrapped my head around this correctly. Thanks!
Link Building | | dirigodev0