If you run a blog on the Internet, you may be familiar with the terms “link farms” and “link exchanges”. The reason you are probably at least semi familiar with these terms is due to the fact that your blog’s backend informs you that you have new comments or links on your website. When you go to check out who linked to you or what the comment is, you easily see that the link goes to a website which displays other links or a slight blurb about your blog with a link back to your page. For those who do not have a blog, the terms might not sound too familiar.
A link farm is essentially a large group of websites which all link back to each other. Most link farms are created not by humans, but by automatic programs. In most instances, link farms are considered spam by the search engines. The thought process behind link farms is that if you have dozens or hundreds of websites that link to yours, the better chances your website has to have high search engine visibility.
At first, link farms were thought to be harmless and they probably were. Many link farms that were created years ago were created by people, not by programs. Now days, the use of link farms to gain search engine results has become so automated and so out of control that the search engines will penalize or even ban sites which they consider to be link farms. Major search engines such as Google suggest that website owners request incoming links from other website owners rather than participate in link farms.
Link exchanges are different from link farms and the two should not be confused. Websites which belong to link exchanges do so to target a specific user or customer. Other websites which participate in the exchange offer the same type of products or services as the rest in most instances.
With link exchanges, a website owner joins a “ring” of other websites. In order to join this group of other websites, the exchange site usually requires the website owner to retrieve website code which will display in banner form on their website. These banners usually link to the link exchange site itself or to other websites that participate in the link exchange.
While link exchanges are not normally considered spam by the search engines like link farms, there are still some disadvantages to using them. Most of the time, you will not have control over what banner displays on your website. It is very important to have control over banner ads on your website so that users of your site will not be offended or confused by the banners. You may also get stuck using banners which have large file sizes that will slow down your website.
To sum it up, link farms are not highly regarded when it comes to good SEO. These days, link farms are considered to be an unethical SEO tactic which is used to generate quick website traffic and search engine rankings. Even though link exchanges are not as harmful to your website as participating in a link farm, it is an option that most website owners are staying clear from these days due to other solid SEO options which provide better results.