In my continuing series on Google Filters, today I will discuss the Link Farm Filter. Google’s search engine ranks web pages according to their incoming links. Before Google put a big emphasis on getting quality links, early search engine optimizers focused on quantity. The thinking was simple – the more incoming links you have, the higher you rank, so get as many incoming links as you can.

This led people to develop link farms which were websites set up for the sole purpose of generating links back to your website. There is no valuable or unique content on these sites. The only information they have are links out to other websites. The more link farms you had set up, the more links you would have to your site and your rankings would increase. Website owners began seeing results and they continued with their link farming strategies.

Google then updated their algorithm to focus on quality links instead of quantity and the values associated with being on a link farm dropped dramatically. More recently Google has even penalized websites for being on a link farm. Now, not only will you not get the benefit of the link but your ranking can actually drop if you are linked from what is perceived to be a link farm.

Website owners who are new to the game are still falling for many of these link farming scams. It is extremely important to focus on building links with recognized, industry leading websites that have high Page Rank and not be sucked in by the offer to get any random link. Not all links are created equal and some can even hurt you!

Evan Carmichael