Why Not Create Websites That Have Real Content?

Lately I've started getting link requests from more and more "webmasters" who want me to link to their new "site". When I take a look at it, I find a page with a menu bar on the left, linking to as many as a hundred or more pages full of links. Sometimes two hundred such pages, or so it seems.

I'm guessing these "sites" are generated by some sort of automated spidering software that searches for every single site that even vaguely mentions whatever "widget" they've selected as their topic, and then automatically requests a link exchange, and creates web sites around those links, but with no real informational content.

I'm sure you've seen these. They revolve around some very broad topic, and are, in my opinion, nothing but link farms. The topic might be "widgets", and then the link pages list every imaginable variation on widgets ... blue widgets, red widgets, and even impossible widgets.

It's one thing to run a legitimate directory that serves a purpose. It's another to toss up one after another of these things just to get search engine ranking and links. I'm not even sure what the logic is behind them.

Several years back when webmasters caught on to the idea of reciprocal linking, it became fashionable to post one's URL on "link farms" and "free for all (FFA)" sites. Such sites would accept and give links to absolutely *any* website, regardless of its theme or content.

Has nobody told these folks that the search engine designers long ago figured out how to discriminate a link farm from legitimate links on a site with otherwise genuine content? Or how to tell a legitimate directory from a bogus one?

Cummon folks. Real content is what gets a site noticed, visited, and ranked well in the search engine results. Real content is what humans want. Create web sites with real content, and you'll be much better off in the long run.