What Do You Know About Link Farms?

I have been reading a lot of information about blogging and how to help my blog get a higher ranking in Google page rankings. The first thing I learned while blogging is linking up to other sites can help move your blog up higher in the search engines. What I did not know is if you link your blog to a Link Farm you might  hurt your ratings and may even make your rating fall. This is the definition  of a Link Farm on Wikipedia's , a link farm is any group of web sites that all hyperlink to every other site in the group. Although some link farms can be created by hand, most are created through  automated programs and services. A link farm is a form of spamming the index of a search engine (sometimes called Spamdexing or spamexing). So, my next Question was, How can I tell if a site is a link Farm? I had to search a little deeper for an answer. I did not find a direct answer to my question but in a round about way I have a better understanding of what to watch out for. If you would like more information check out this article at About.com I wish you all the best in your blogging adventures.