By Wolfgang Jaegel and Gregory Smyth
Author’s note: Please note that we neither encourage nor endorse nor suggest the use of any of the techniques discussed in this article. What we can tell you is that we do not use them, and our clients’ sites continue to rank very well on Google. Always keep in mind that proper organic methods of optimizing your site will take longer than spamming your way to the top rankings, but in taking a long-term view, you will stay at the top for a long time without running into the risk of being dropped completely from the search engine index.
Link Farms in SEO and the Dangers of Link Farming Spam Tactics
Link farming – also known as FFA (free-for-all link sites) – was born when more webmasters learned that inbound links could heavily influence website rankings. A link farm is a group of web pages and websites that all hyperlink to every other page and website in the group. Although some link farms were created by hand, most were created through automated programs and services. A link farm is one of the worst forms of spamming a search engine’s index (sometimes called spamdexing).
Google’s Response to Link Farms and Modern-Day Penalties
Search engines evolved quickly to combat this. Google long ago devalued and eliminated the ranking benefits assigned to pages with an inordinate collection of links, non-relevant links, or obvious signs of artificial link building (too many links in too short a timeframe). Today, link farms are still around, mostly as part of private blog networks (PBNs), and they remain a fast track to penalties and deindexing. Nevertheless, uninformed webmasters and unethical SEO firms continue to use them, even though the risks far outweigh any short-term benefit.
Mini-Site Networks in SEO and Their Risks for Google Rankings
In the early stages of the Google PageRank algorithm, mini-site networks were created to exploit vulnerabilities. Domain names were cheap, and the infrastructure costs of VPS (Virtual Private Servers) or dedicated servers were cost-effective, making it an attractive option. Many mini-site networks were designed to act as leader pages, just as if they were much larger sites. Topic and product-specific sites were created, all linking back to the main site. Each mini-site would use a keyword-rich URL and be designed to appeal to the search engines of the time.
Google’s Penalties for SEO Firms Using Mini-Site Networks
Several SEO firms artificially boosted link density by weaving mini-site networks from multiple clients together. In the early 2000s, this did influence rankings. However, by mid-decade, Google penalized several large SEO firms and banned many of their clients’ sites for using this tactic.
Today, this tactic has essentially been replaced by PBNs, doorway pages, and expired domain manipulation. All of which are on Google’s spam radar and carry a high risk of severe penalties.
Leader Pages SEO Technique and Google Doorway Page Penalties
Leader pages are a series of similar pages designed to target one or two specific keywords and meet the requirements of different search engine algorithms. Some took this further by creating a page for each phrase and for each search engine. This was one of the earliest SEO tricks, dating back to when many search engines were sorting fewer than a billion documents.
Why Leader Pages Are Banned and Ineffective in Modern SEO
Leader pages are a form of the doorway page technique, and today they are explicitly banned in Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Search engines can detect multiple copies of virtually the same document with ease. This technique is no longer practical as on-site keyword density carries far less weight than it once did. Modern SEO focuses on relevance, user experience, backlinks, and content quality, rather than duplicating pages stuffed with keywords.
