Google just penalized a bunch of sites for reciprocal link scams. This is where people try to get a bunch of back links pointing to their site to improve their rankings. Back links are a good way to increase your internet exposure but caution must be taken to avoid getting penalized.

If you get too many back links too fast it might start to look like you are gaming the system. If you participate in some of the link farms it is definitely going to look suspicious.

Right now on Active Rain there are people colluding to give each other back links. It looks innocent enough but are we looking a the new link farm? Will google be able to see through the ploy and who will get penalized? Active Rain or the link farmers?