A “link farm” is a website, or Web page that contains hundreds if not thousands of links to any number of unrelated industry sites. Believe it or not, there are many so-called SEO “experts” who still use this dangerous and reprehensible technique to promote dental websites in the search engines.

Dentists who pay $1,000’s of dollars for search engine optimization to companies or individuals employing link farms risk their websites being penalized, or even banned from the search engines entirely. With some dentists earning 6 figures annually from their websites, losing this sizable revenue due to the actions of an unscrupulous SEO is a tough pill to swallow.

If you’re considering hiring any dental marketing agency or SEO to improve your site’s ranking, before you sign on the dotted line, investigate thoroughly their methods to ensure they do not rely upon or advocate link farms. No self-respecting SEO or webmaster would ever endanger their client’s livelihood with such a method.

A.K.A. “bad neighborhoods”, link farms serve no useful purpose to either people or search engines and provide only a temporary benefit for the dentist, until the linking scheme is discovered or reported, which by then it’s often too late to remediate the transgression.

For the benefit of our readers and Google (if you’re listening big fella), here’s a list of link farm domains in active practice that we’ve identified recently. One has only to visit a few of these sites to see the hundreds of website links that are totally out of context — having no common theme whatsoever.

Active Link Farm Examples:

acromediasystems.com
alldphoto.com
bestdiamondcuts.com
bestgiftideas4u.com
bestvacationspots4u.com
bitefxforum.com
buildinggreatgolf.com
businessmanagementowl.com
canadaweloveyou.com
carbasicsresources.com
computerowl.com
drugsarehorrible.com
financialindustryeagle.com
foodetiquette.com
girodhouse.com
golfingandgolfers.com
handcraftedjewelry4u.com
healthandfitnessresourcesdir.com
horsytees.com
howtothishowtothat.com
huskerbeefco.com
innsite.com
iranflood.com
jewelryloveresources.com
larsbrundin.com
loveyourpetsnow.com
marketingowl.com
mcclusk.com
medicinemeandyou.com
mercuryfour.com
mexicoweloveyou.com
motorcycleresources.com
mypettribute.com
objtech.com
onlinemarketingowl.com
planetweddingtraditions.com
plantloveandresources.com
presidentialowl.com
raymondsearson.com
realtorsloveus.com
rockcollectorresources.com
saveyouandmemoney.com
sealbeachsportcamp.com
small-business-grants-directory.com
spatreatments4u.com
sportsthisandthat.com
swannannies.com
thaiji.com
thegoodhuegallery.com
topmedicalprofessions.com
universalbyline.com
urecca.com
vivatfest.com

It is unfortunate that link farming spam sites similar to those listed above have a profound, negative effect upon the websites they link with — perhaps representing a financial loss totaling in the millions of dollars each year.

Most, if not all the website domains shown above are already de-listed and banned from the SERPs on Google. So why would any webmaster continue to post links to their client dentists from them? Your guess is as good as mine.

Sadly, dental websites that are found to be participating in these link farms are also at risk of being banned from the search engines. The moral to the story is dentists should learn how to protect themselves and avoid SEO scams.

This entry posted Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 1:02 am - Filed under Hall of Shame, Scams & Rip-offs. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.