Member Avatar for Shih-Lian Huang

In SEO, we have to know two things are very important. The first one is open directories project (ODP), which is dmoz.com. The idea of open directories is to submit your site to other big web hosts' directories in order to increase the listed frequency from the searching results by search engine. The second important concept is crawler-based system. Crawler sometimes is also called spider or robot, which is a smart collecting program from search engine to gather many information from web sites in the Internet. After collecting, crawler (spider or robot) will return to search engine and update the new information to the index of search engine's database. Then, search engine's searching algorithm can find out your site in its indexed database based on certain keywords.
Extra concept of improving SEO can be "link", linking farms, whcih is to make as many friend-links to your site as possible to convince search engine (or crawler programs) that your site is highly associated with other sites. Then, it is possible to increase the listed frequency of your site. Another concept such as cloaking, which is the technique of making the deference of looking to human and crawlers. It is usually used on Flash-made web pages and doorway pages.

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Thanks to for starting this thread — the basic ideas you and early replies raised (directories, crawlers, links) were correct for 2005. Important update for readers later on: the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) shut down in March 2017, so mass directory submission is no longer a reliable tactic. Modern link acquisition needs to be earned, not mass-submitted. (searchengineland.com)

Good call from about quality vs. link farms, and from warning about black-hat tactics. Google now treats “link schemes” and cloaking as spam: buying/selling links, large-scale reciprocal swaps, PBNs, hidden links, and cloaking can trigger algorithmic devaluation or manual action. Build editorial, relevant links (content, PR, partnerships), mark paid/sponsored links correctly, and avoid mass guest-post campaigns that exist purely to pass PageRank. (developers.google.com)

Technical note that fills gaps in the thread: crawlers now render JavaScript, mobile-first indexing is standard, and page experience (Core Web Vitals) matters alongside content quality. Show the same content and metadata to mobile and desktop, make core content crawlable (or server-render it), and optimize LCP/CLS/FID (or the modern equivalents). Also adopt E‑E‑A‑T principles (experience/expertise/authority/trust) when producing content — trustworthiness is central. Use Google tools (URL Inspection, Rich Results Test, PageSpeed) to validate how Google sees pages. (developers.google.com)

Practical checklist (repair + ongoing): verify the site in Search Console; check Manual Actions and messages; run URL Inspection and the PageSpeed/Rich Results tests; audit backlinks with GSC + a crawler (Ahrefs/SEMrush); contact webmasters to remove bad links and use Disavow only if you have a manual action or clear link-scheme history; document every fix and request reconsideration when ready. For manual actions and disavow guidance, follow Google’s official steps. ()

(Thanks also to for the nudge — this summary updates the thread for modern practice.)

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Member Avatar for fromthe5

Ummmm... I don't want to get into the whole post, but there's a BIG diference between link farms and quality link exchanges. For now let's just say "link farms" are bad. Quality, relevant link exchanges are good. Cloaking can be successful but if you're caught your site will usually be removed from the index.

Member Avatar for Shih-Lian Huang

Thank you. I agree to what you said. Good point.

Ummmm... I don't want to get into the whole post, but there's a BIG diference between link farms and quality link exchanges. For now let's just say "link farms" are bad. Quality, relevant link exchanges are good. Cloaking can be successful but if you're caught your site will usually be removed from the index.

Member Avatar for SEO Cat

Hi there,

You need to be very careful when talking about link farms and cloaking pages as these are now considered black hat SEO - which sounds cool, but isn't a good thing.

Check out the e-book in my signature which covers this in depth

Thanks

Member Avatar for Shih-Lian Huang

Thank you, buddy. I got the E-book, SEO-MadeEasy_b.pdf from your signature. Your point is great.

Good day, buddy :cheesy:

Hi there,

You need to be very careful when talking about link farms and cloaking pages as these are now considered black hat SEO - which sounds cool, but isn't a good thing.

Check out the e-book in my signature which covers this in depth

Thanks

Member Avatar for seo_expert

bump :)

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