A link farm is a collection of websites that all prominently link to each other for the purpose of increasing the ranking of those sites on search results lists. It is a method of search engine optimization, and is usually considered to be a “black hat” tactic because it draws web browsers to look at web sites that have little or nothing to do with their searches. Because of this, web sites found to be guilty of link farming risk being delisted from the search engine.
Link farms are effective because many search engines use links as part of their ranking methods. The more links a site has, the higher it may be ranked. When sites link each other, this factor increases. When a large group of sites does this, the effect increases exponentially.
The farms are often created by computer programs, though they are sometimes also manufactured by hand. Either way, their contents are usually considered spam.
In addition to being useless on the surface, link farms also have the added problem of diluting the effectiveness of keywords and the efficiency of search engines.
Link farms should not be confused with legitimate webs of links. It’s very common for networks of similar websites to mutually link to each other. This is not only accepted but encouraged by search engines and most users.
To see what others have to say about link farming, see http://www.bing.com/community/webmaster/f/12248/p/661732/9617850.aspx
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