I know what you are thinking… “Oh another blog post about how it’s all about ‘writing’… “good content”… “connecting”… blah blah blah joy”. You’re right that I’ve known how to write for a long time, but that’s not it. I like to think I’m a decently smart guy, and maybe it’s good to provide smart useful content, but that’s not it either. It’s certainly not making a ton of facebook friends for any purpose than to pretend that my site is popular and therefore trustworthy to buy off of. No ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about the single most important factor in earning a living online, LINKS.

What I used to do: GET LINKS. From where? Everywhere. I lived and died by the mantra “there’s no such thing as a bad link”. Do you have a money site? Good send it every piece of crap link you can get. Bookmarking demon links? Yup! AMA links? Yup! Duplicate content links? Yep! Forum links? Directory links? No follow links? Do follow links? Yep! Yep! Yep! Yep! I didn’t worry about hiding links, or sending my crappy links through better links (although I have always backlinked my backlinks as much as possible as well). That folks is how my main money site has 45,265 links! That folks is why my main money site made $33,587 in the past year!

Since then I’ve become picky… when I start a new site I send it a few links. Slowly. I worry about the poor little sandbox. I worry what if google sees all these crap links I’m sending and I get flagged. I worry about always sending links through another high quality link. Well guys, NO MORE. I’ve decided from this day forth I will be sending every link I can get right straight at my money sites, and you know what if google finds 50% of them… heck 15% of them… I’ll still be FAR ahead of where I’ll be by treating every one of my sites like it’s a little angel. Consider this my retirement from being a cautious webmaster.

If you want to throw me a solid then send a bunch of links to this site with the anchor “make money online”. The more the merrier.

–De-Man Out!

First off I’ll start with the disclaimer:

I do not personally use, nor do I advocate the use of, link farms or any other link building method that seeks to manipulate Google’s system.

And I suppose with that disclaimer I should add another:

I do know there are many people who use link farms that make a lot of money and are very successful doing it. But what works today may get you banned tomorrow. So, proceed at your own risk!

With that out of the way let’s start with defining exactly what a link farm is:

• Traditionally: A network of self owned sites from which one links to another self owned site. Basically you buy a bunch of domains, post content on them, and use them to send anchored links to your money site in order to climb the SERPs.
  • Self hosting domains
  • http://wordpress.com
  • http://www.blogger.com
• Modern: A network of sites which you have paid access to from which you can post links to your sites. Basically you pay some money to someone for access to their large network of sites, you write articles (some spun, some 100% unique), and in those articles you can link to your own sites.
  • Build My Rank
  • LinxBoss
  • Postrunner at The Keyword Academy
• Broad: Any site that allows people to post content in exchange for anchored ‘do-follow’ links back to their own sites. Basically you give us something we give you something, so no matter how you slice it that does fall in a broad definition of link farming.
  • http://ezinearticles.com
  • http://hubpages.com
  • http://wordwolf.com

So anyway now that all that preliminary junk is out of the way, the first assertion that I was arguing against was that Google could algorithmically sniff out link farms easily and either a) devalue their links or b) deindex the farms completely. I suppose this is not an unreasonable assumption, Google works with an algorithm as the base of their search and they do that pretty well. The problem for Google arises because allowing a few link farm websites ‘costs’ (in creditability, algorithmic accuracy, annoyance of people) them far less then the alternative of wiping out all link farms and causing some collateral damage as well. I agree that Google has an interest in getting rid of bad links, and getting rid of programs like BMR is one of Matt Cutts’ goals as spam king. I don’t think Google will ever be able to wipe out these types of farms completely, but if they can get rid of even some of the sites these programs use then there is some devaluation of the linking power over time so people who use these techniques need to know that over time rankings will slip if they don’t keep building links and therefore their income isn’t truly passive.

The other argument that ensued was the debate over whether or not the postrunner system constituted a ‘link farm’ of sorts. Let’s not kid ourselves about the difference people, PRN is designed to manipulate googles system therefore it’s always at risk too, which is why high standards are maintained and people need to be sure to keep the junk off their sites or some of them may be devalued or deindexed as well.

Anyway the point is that if you use link farms I wouldn’t suggest relying on them solely and you should always be trying to grow your natural link profile. It’s the only safe way. And remember the best way, and the only completely risk free way, to get any backlink is to get them naturally by providing high quality original content on your site!

–Justin (and Trent)

Ok so I’m getting a little ahead of myself I guess. First things first, the google sandbox effect is a phenomena where a site climbs in the SERPs too quickly and subsequently is applied a temporary penalty. The penalty can last anywhere from a couple of months to nine or more. A site that is seemingly going strong, climbing up towards a magical page one ranking, flies too close to the sun and gets knocked down a peg.

So what exactly gets a site relegated to the dreaded depths of the sandbox? Well this is where the debate truly heats up. We all know that the basic thing that happens is a quick climb followed by an even quicker fall, but there is more to it than that. A lot of people think that getting only strong links (in content, from high page rank, and high trust rank pages) will keep you out of the box. Others think the key is building links very slow and steady, not setting off any red flags. To be truthful I don’t have the answer to this question, but one can take a good lesson here anyway. Build your links naturally, which means slowly and from a wide range of quality sites.

Another thing to think about is why does google even have the sandbox? Well that isn’t too complicated to figure out, and since google is logical it also seems to be result that supports the theory. Google has the sandbox to, like everything they do, fight spam. Think about it, spammers are generally into sites for the short haul, the quick buck. When they run the risk of google slapping their sites down it deters them from building in the first place because unlike those of us who build a passive income they want a site to pay off short term.

A final question that is interesting to consider, and probably more useful is what to do if you think you are in the sandbox. The answer there is simple in the MMO world, keep building links. That’s all you need to do if you find yourself in the sandbox, or just in the midst of a normal shuffle. Don’t complicate things unless you’re just looking for some good mental exercise.

Oh and if you want to see the sandbox effect in action here is a good image of my site when it went in for NINE MONTHS! I kept working on this baby thought the rough times and it paid off well. Keep working.

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