Last but not least, if you have your suspicions that a site might be a link farm, for any reason, stay away. It's better to miss a great linking opportunity than to post your link and get downgraded in your search engine placements.

Non-relevant Links

When you're placing your links, you want to make sure that the site you're linking to has something to do with your own site and, vice versa.

A non-relevant link is defined as a hypertext link placed on a website, or in a directory, that has little to no relevance to the linking site or directory. These links are placed for the sole purpose of 1) increasing page rank or 2) getting a website crawled and indexed or a combination of the two.

The most obvious way to combat not-relevant links, over which you have complete control, is the placement of links on your own site. Avoid placing links on your own site to another that has no relevance to your content; even if it's a legitimate. Why? The link doesn't do anything for you or the person whose link you placed. On the other hand, don't ask someone to place a link on their site which doesn't relate to yours.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN all look closely at whom you're linking to and who's linking to you. In fact, Google's PageRank definition specifically states that link relevance (quality) is looked at more than just the link itself.

So what's the solution? As in researching a potential link farm, you need to check out the sites that are you're linking to. If you're submitting your site to directories or article directories, make sure that you're submitting your content and links to the most relevant topics and sections.

Don't worry about getting an exact match in terms of relevance between your site and the linking site; just make sure that each site complements the other.

Know the Linking Pitfalls

In summary, you can be accused of being a link spammer even if you think you haven't done anything wrong. To keep your linking strategy clean, I've outlined two specific techniques that will keep your site safe with the search engines.

First, watch out for unscrupulous link directories and sites (i.e. link farms). Use the techniques and ask yourself the questions I've outlined to recognize and avoid these harmful sites.

Second, make sure you're posting to relevant sites/directories/articles/blogs or wherever you choose to submit your content and links.

Most importantly, if you think you might get accused of being a spammer, by attempting to use a linking technique you just read about or software you just bought, trust your gut and don't do it. Linking software creators claim that you can get thousands of back links with the press of a button or for only "$49". The only way to get good quality back links is to do the research yourself and hand-submit every single link.

If you avoid these two traps, you'll be well on your way to getting the links you need to get your website placed higher in search results and, as a result, generate more sales.

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