Backlinks are one of the important ranking factors every website owner should consider. These links are responsible for making sure that search engines perceive your website as a credible and authentic resource.
However, many SEO marketers try to exploit the fair practices of earning backlinks through link farming. This strategy not only destroys your website in the long run but also causes severe penalties by search engines. So, In this blog post, we will let you know about Link Farming in SEO and how it affects your website. We will also provide information about identifying link farming on any website and how you should also avoid it. So, buckle up to enjoy an exhilarating journey to learn about Link Farming and more. Let’s get started!
What Is a Link Farm in SEO?
To understand link Farming, you first need to know what link farms are.
Link farms are basically shady websites that are created to sell Backlinks. Yes, you heard it right. These websites use unethical and manipulative ways to supply backlinks to website owners. They create pages, guest posts, and regular posts to deliver backlinks to other websites. It means that they are only created to provide backlinks that have ethically no value.
Sooner or later, when a search engine identifies link farming on a certain website, it can cause severe penalties and restrictions from search engines leading to poor rankings.
Link farming websites are not similar to our regular websites that produce structured content and are available for timely backlinks, but they are just made up of automated generated content that literally has no quality or value but has been providing links to websites through its hyperlinked website channel.
Is Link Farm Good for SEO, and Why Does Google Hate It?
Google’s algorithms are constantly evolving, and for a good reason. Many websites are trying to play deceptive tactics to achieve higher rankings in search engines.
But after the update of Google’s algorithm (SpamBrain) in December 2022, link-farming websites are unable to rank their linked websites unfairly on search engines.
Now, search engines are more concerned with ranking deserving and credible websites that provide value to the users and are not employing any false tactics. So, Link farming can potentially harm your website’s SEO by penalizing your website by Google and other search engines.
Meaning that there are no ways for link farming websites to deceive search engines and achieve higher rankings by false methods – they can ultimately get caught and will have to pay the price for their manipulative tactics.
How To Identify Link Farming?
You might think that it must be challenging to identify a link farm, but let us assure you after implementing these tips, you will be able to detect that whether a website is a link farm or not.
1. Check the Quality of Content
It’s often seen that link farm websites do not produce quality content. Instead, they just write generic or low-quality articles and blog posts for the sake of hiding links in them. So, to identify a link farm, you must check the quality of the content, such as whether it includes useful and updated information, does not have plagiarized and duplicate content, and provides value to the readers.
2. Look for Author Information
Link farm websites usually don’t have author information since no one wants to associate their names with such shady websites. Therefore, they might write content with anonymous author names, such as guest posts and team writers, etc. if you come across any of the websites that produce low-quality content and just even don’t have information about the name of the author, you must return back as this is a sign of a link farm.
3. Evaluate the About Page
When assessing link farm websites, you must visit their About page as they simply provide no such useful information about their company or anything. They don’t provide information about their website owner’s email and contact number. In contrast, legitimate websites provide solid information about their company and owner.
4. Analyze the Number of Links
You must check the number of backlinks in a link farm website. They often provide irrelevant external backlinks to websites that are stuffed at awkward places in their content. You can also leverage several SEO tools to check the number of backlinks a site has. Well, usually, link farm websites have thousands or maybe greater external backlinks.
5. Scrutinize Anchor Text
While many websites tend to focus on writing descriptive anchor text, Link Farm websites do not pay attention to it. They just include basic and typical anchor text such as “read more” or “click here,” as their purpose is only to provide fraudulent backlinks. So, check when a website has all the generic anchor text; then, it can be a link farm website.
6. Review the Relevancy of Blog Topics
Link farm websites produce content for all niches. It means that they don’t have a dedicated niche or expertise to produce quality content. They just create content on irrelevant topics to assign external backlinks to other websites. For example, you may find a technology-related article with food blogs or other unrelated articles.
Why Should You Avoid Link Farming?
Many black-hat SEO experts might manipulate your thoughts about Link farming. But you should remain firm in avoiding it at all costs. To make your sentiment more assertive about how bad link farming is, we are here to reveal some of the reasons why you should never consider link farming for your SEO strategy:
It Can Harm Your Search Engine Rankings
Picture this: You’re putting so much effort into your SEO strategies to build your website’s reputation and improve search engine rankings. However, one wrong step toward achieving shady backlinks could harm your website’s overall reputation and rankings.
Search engines only consider backlinks from reputable and relevant resources. Don’t think that you might get saved from search engine crawlers after using black hat SEO methods. Once your website gets caught by Google for using link farming, then you must prepare to get severe penalties for your website.
It Has No Warranty and Guarantee
Link farms do not have any long-term benefits. It means that there is no warranty that your backlinks will be saved and remain live until you want. And simply, there is no guarantee that your backlinks will not get caught by search engines.
So, whatever the reason you have, you shouldn’t employ link farming to your websites as they can potentially damage your website in the long run.
It Can Cause Severe Penalties
Nothing is as bad as getting your website penalized by Google. Link farming can cause your website to get temporarily or permanently removed by Google’s indexes and result pages.
Google is more concerned about quality guidelines and does not tolerate any illegal tactics that do not benefit its users. So, if you are using link farming to get short-term benefits, you must keep in mind that this practice would potentially cost you much more harm than you have thought.
What Are Other Methods to Use Instead of Link Farming?
You must practice white-hat SEO methods and fair tactics to ensure your website achieves higher search engine rankings and gains long-term benefits. Any other illegal method might help you in achieving short-term goals but would cause extreme harm to your website. So, we have listed down some of the best practices that you can use instead of link farming to earn backlinks:
1. Link to Valuable Resources
While looking to backlink your websites, you must ensure the credibility and authenticity of the resource you’re linking to. Always prefer to link with relevant websites that align with your business niche and have significantly higher rankings on search engines.
Do not try deceiving your audience by linking to low-quality websites that potentially provide no value. Remember to always check the website’s credibility when requesting a backlink and do not agree to any hidden charges or fees that they might ask for the links, as these are the tactics of link farms.
2. Create Quality Content
Great content can help your website in earning quality backlinks. Make sure to write informative and valuable content that makes other websites eager to link to your website.
Hire talented content writers and write exceptional pieces of content for your niche to establish yourself as an authority in the industry. When your own content is worthy enough, you won’t need to use other false methods to achieve backlinks.
3. Earn Organic Backlinks
There is nothing wrong with trading backlinks from reputable websites in your industry. But earning organic backlinks could help your SEO efforts in the long run.
You must craft high-quality content addressing your audience’s concerns and issues. Furthermore, keep an eye on competitors’ strategies and try to write exceptional content that makes you stand out from your competitors. When your website appears to be the most authentic resource, you will naturally get backlinks from resources that want to link to your website for their own good.
4. Don’t Get Confused Between Directories and Link Farms
Many of you might get confused between a directory and link farms. However, you must identify these two on the basis of their distinct features. Directories are structured form of resources that provides information about the relevant external links. In contrast, link farms are decluttered and random, providing no significant value.
Directories are available to help the users seek the information that they are looking for. On the other hand, Link farms are just there to serve as a platform for selling links that do not focus on providing valuable service to users.
Wrap Up:
Misleading techniques might help you gain short-term benefits but can be lethal for your website’s long-term performance. So, you must avoid using link farming techniques for your SEO optimization and instead focus on achieving organic and authentic backlinks that can drive fruitful results for your business’s success.
However, if you need assistance in building a powerful backlink profile for your website, you must reach out to our agency’s website today and seek help from our talented link builders. We are here to deliver the best results when it comes to SEO!
