Getting to the top of search results is a hefty task to accomplish. The high competition among online business, each doing everything possible to get visibility in search engines, has left search engines devise stricter ranking policies. Earlier, keywords used to be a decisive factor, which is now still there, but the emphasis is on links. In other words, according to latest search engine characteristics, linking goes a long way in determining the fate of a website in search engines.

The fundamental idea of linking is connecting any website with similar websites. This helps search engines adjudge the relevancy of the website. More the number of relevant links higher the value of the website in the eyes of search engines. Here is where the actual problem lies. Some people have started using false links to increase the value of their websites in an unethical manner. Such a practice is commonly known as link spamming.

The concept of link spamming started with taking advantage of Google’s algorithm that used to rank a webpage based on the number of websites it is linked with. Spurious webmasters started widespread linking of websites, both relevant and irrelevant. Link farming is another type of spamming where a huge number of community pages are created and then linked to raise the number of links.

Google and other major search engines are now much more improved and do have capabilities to identify a sudden widespread increase in links.

There are a number of other link spamming techniques, which are frequently used as a part of unethical SEO practices. However, one thing that is often forgotten is that search engines are vigilant enough to find out unethical practices. In other words, unethical seo practices may get an immediate boost, but always ends up in the website being banned or black listed. And to be frank enough, it takes more time to remove a penalty that getting top ranks using ethical SEO practices.