Link Farms, Link Exchanges, and Social Networking

How do link farms, link exchanges, and social networking sites effect SERPS

[Chrispcritters]

I was just recently bumped down the the search results by a site thathas not b een in the top 10 SERPS (that I have seen). I was curious because when I reviewed the site to see what I could do better with my own site I noticed several things that I thought were major negatives in Google play book and then one interesting observance.

1) Link Farms.
The site participates in a quite obvious link farm. I'm defining a link farm as a group of websites that are unrelated that each have a section for links that point to each other's sites.

2) Paid Links.
The site advertises on it's homepage that they'll do homepage link exchanges. Basically, if you link to us with this
specific link, we'll post a link to you on our homepage.

3) When I do a search for backlinks to the site I see a *ton* of links from social networking sites, blogs, and other similar sites, but not sites that would particularly be in the same industry or on the same topic.

Can I expect this site to eventually be delisted by Google for this behavior? Will the site see a slow decline in ranking as social networking sites "lower" their ranking of the site in question? Is this something that I'm going to have to continue to contend with?

I'm fine with my existing ranking because I understand such things ebb and flow. I'm focused more on building site content then worrying about any one search result, but when I see someone come out of nowhere and take the #1 SERPS across a wide swath of searches I wonder if something else is going on.

[edited by: tedster at 8:41 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2007]
[edit reason] fix formatting [/edit]

[nippi]

SO what you are saying is, they have a mix of one way, and recipricol links, and many of those recip links, are home page links?

Though the websites linking are not related, their topics may well be?

No, I'd expect this model, to provide you with lots of trouble.

[Crush]

Look, do not beleive the bull about on topic links. You have been knocked down now and look at everyone infront of you. Most likely their links come form all over the show. You can pray and hope they get banned which happens to a minutely small amiount of sites these days or start getting links.

" focused more on building site content then worrying
about any one search result"

You need both. Content without links is like opening a shop with no advertising.

[edited by: tedster at 8:44 am (utc) on Mar. 12, 2007]

[wanderingmind]

I would expect the link farm and link exchange links to be devalued in a while. The benefits which accrue from blog links and social networking site links may stay with them for a long time.

Link farms - bad
Exchanges - don't matter.
Social networks and blogs - beneficial
On-topic -- perfect.

Just my experience. I don't bother with the first two types at all, prefer not to have here today gone tomorrow traffic and rankings. Stay for the long haul.

[zeus]

link exchange still works, im not sure who said that google would not like that, I see tons of site with linkexchange that rank no. 1. I also think thats ok, but not when we pass 10-20 links.

[Syndicate29]

There's a new retailer on the block who's appeared with a network of around twenty sites, all different designs but obviously all on the same theme, all linked together and all listed in every directory/link farm you can name and every blog I've ever come across.

Pick any key phrase in the sector and there's at least one of their sites in the top 10, often there's several and sometimes as many as half a dozen including 5 of their sites listed for the main phrase. They must be making a fortune. :)

It seems to me that some of the recent algo changes are putting much less importance on things that were previously big no nos with Google.

<Sorry, no specifics.
See Forum Charter [webmasterworld.com]>

[edited by: tedster at 7:18 pm (utc) on Mar. 12, 2007]

[Chrispcritters]

SO what you are saying is, they have a mix of one way, and recipricol links, and many of those recip links, are home page links?

Yes.

Though the websites linking are not related, their topics may well be?

This site is a technology site. Has a link directory which includes a page of links to beauty supply sites. Beauty supply sites have a directory which has a technology page with links to technology sites.

I see tons of site with linkexchange that rank no. 1. I also think thats ok, but not when we pass 10-20 links.

They do have a directory linking to 100's of sites in a variety of topics (beauty supplies, etc).

I figure I'll just keep on keeping on and do a better job of encouraging my users to link back to the site.