Even link farmers suffer droughts

Google is taking steps to remove link farms, or ad-rich sites with little content, from the AdSense network, reports The New York Post.

Google has begun sending cut-off notices to owners of sites that are ad-heavy but content-light.

Such destinations are strategically populated with certain keywords so they come up high in search results, a process called keyword-stuffing. Publishers then put ads on the sites, then reap profits from people who find them on search engines and click on sponsored content.

These pages are under fire for skewing search results and hiking up ad prices. Critics have also taken Google to task for not doing enough to police the practice, pointing out that Google makes money either way.

Google says its renewed efforts are standard procedure but some experts say this is the largest single attempt they've made to curb the practice.