FFA - Bad Neighborhoods

There are many ways to get traffic to your web site. Some ways, however, are more risky than others when considering the consequences. Included in the dangerous traffic driving methods (along with sending SPAM) is submitting your URL to FFA, or free for all sites.

What is FFA?
FFA is an abbreviation for “Free for All” and often called a “link farm”. A FFA is a links page where anyone can add a link. FFA’s utilize webpage scripts that automatically update a links listing when someone submits their URL to it- usually in hopes that either someone will view the page and click on their link, or search engines will index the page with their URL. These are often submitted to by automated programs which submit to hundreds of FFAs at a time.

Since webmasters know the best way to get listed in Google is to get their URL ‘found’ by the spider on another Google listed site, FFA’s were invented to help everyone get listed. And it wasn’t a bad idea- at first. While some webmasters have found short term success generating site link backs from link farms, the consequences of using FFA far outweigh the benefits. Here are some reasons why:

Little Traffic
Because FFA’s are a massive pile of unordered links there is little hope of getting relevant traffic from actual viewers. If you are still hoping to generate search engine traffic from a link farm, think again. Any search engine worth being listed in is already onto link farms and discounts any link relevancy from such sources.

SPAM Attack
In order to submit a URL to a link farm you must submit a valid email address. Those who have submitted to FFA’s have learned the hard way that those email addresses are sold to and violated by spammers.

Tainted by Association
Search engines are now considering link farms a violation of good search engine optimization strategy and are penalizing domains that participate in free for alls.

Stay Away from FFA
Obtaining relevant link backs from similar web sites is still the best way to improve search engine rankings and page rank, and increase the relevancy of your own site. Don’t let smooth sales pitches lead your advertising campaign into no good “free for alls”. The adage is still true, ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’, and free for all’s will definitely cost you.

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