Link Farm or legit directory?

[hommealone]

I hear the term "Link Farm" used in these forums alot, and that it is important to avoid them because of the danger of incurring the wrath of Google. I have a general idea that a Link Farm is a scheme of some kind to get more links on the web in some underhanded way. But I'm not sure if I would know one if I saw it. Some directories that are not among the big, well known ones seem, to me anyway, to be in some kind of gray zone, and so I am wary of submitting to many possibly legit directories just because I don't know how to tell a legit one from a scam one.

Also, I get the sense from reading some of the topics in WPW that there is disagreement on just what does and does not constitute a Link Farm.

I'm sure it would be very helpful to other inexperienced developers like myself, and maybe to some experienced ones as well, to let the various definitions and opinions fly on this subject, namely: #1)Just what is it that makes a website a Link Farm, anyway?

And while we're at it, #2) what type of trouble do you think that submitting to one, without recognizing it as such, might or might not get you into? Finally, #3) Which, (legit directories, not LFs!)if any, is it worth paying to get into?

Thanks in advance for your opinions and advise.
- Paul

[adore]

1) I believe link farm is a site which contains large amount of unrelated links which are often the only content. The criteria which are probably taken into account are high number of links on one page (a lot more than 100 suggested by Google) and the unrelated keywords.
If you find a site with large number of links which has PR0 then you might suspect it was banned as a link farm.
2) Link farms are not dangerous as long as you don't link to them.

[hommealone]

Thanks, Adore.

I've also just read this difinition on another forum:

Technically, a link farm is where a page with all the same links are passed around and everyone in a group can put the same page up - and do.

I'm coming to see that people use the term a little loosely, but basically they always refer to some kind of spam-y or scheme-y site that uses link pages in an underhanded way to boost positions of sites (or to make money from paid inclusions??). Does that sound right?

Among web professionals, it seems to be one of those "I know one when I see one" kind of things, but not at first such an easy thing to discern among us amateurs and DIYer webmasters.

Adore, you said that they are safe as long as you don't link to one. The problem, of course, is that if you're not sure whether you can tell a clean one from a dirty one, then it's hard to know whether to exchange links with a site which might be perfectly OK! That's why I posted looking for tips on how to tell the difference, so any more definitions or descriptions can only help!

[adore]

Originally Posted by hommealone

I'm coming to see that people use the term a little loosely, but basically they always refer to some kind of spam-y or scheme-y site that uses link pages in an underhanded way to boost positions of sites (or to make money from paid inclusions??). Does that sound right?

Yes, it sounds right to me.

Originally Posted by hommealone

Adore, you said that they are safe as long as you don't link to one. The problem, of course, is that if you're not sure whether you can tell a clean one from a dirty one, then it's hard to know whether to exchange links with a site which might be perfectly OK! That's why I posted looking for tips on how to tell the difference, so any more definitions or descriptions can only help!

There is no difference between link farms and other spam sites in terms of possible danger of linking.
In general make some research if the site is indexed (provided it's not very new) as banned sites don't show in the index.
You can also check linking sites if they don't suffer from linking (=don't appear in ranking as well, or have low PR - one of the effects of linking to spam sites is lowering your PR).

Hope this helps

[AVC]

Rest assured that Google is looking at all "Bidding Directories" as link farms just as reciprocal link directories are link farms.

The paid links issue is serious, bidding directories are nothing more than a get rich quick scam that con men in the directory business fool themselves into thinking are legitimate websites as they sucker each other and novice webmasters into buying links in these interlinked link farm networks.

[incrediblehelp]

Also dont forget about link farms formed by one entity. Things like link networks built to drive traffic and PR to one primary website.