Using an auto directory submission
-
Has anyone used easysubmits.com and what's your experience with it? Any other directory submission or link building tools that help automate and manage the process like easysubmits.com says they can do?
I'm just looking at it currenlty and wanted to hear others thoughts before I get taken in by some black hat method that hurts my websites instead.
-
You shouldn't be getting that many, so shouldn't be hard to track. Just go for a few with the most authority. I have a list here.
-
The measurement Google uses to determine if a directory is ok or not is not whether or not the directory submission is automated, although I would share I am not aware of any directory which accepts automated entries that is compliant with Google Guidelines.
The question Google will ask...is this link you created on the directory truly helpful to users? Would you have created the link even if search engines did not exist? Or does this link seem like it was created mainly to manipulate page rank?
-
Francisco is dead right.
On a personal level, I do not like the BBB. A few years ago they had a scandal where it was uncovered they were basically selling ratings. If you paid them money, you received a good rating, negative feedback could disappear, etc. Since that time they claim to have cleaned up their act.
The BBB is NOT a non-profit organization. Sure, the head office might be, but all the local offices are privately owned franchisees who operate for-profit businesses. Once again, I don't care for the lack of transparency where they present themselves as a non-profit business.
With the above said, I encourage clients to join the BBB. Why? Because the public sees the BBB as a positive organization and for the reasons Francisco shared.
-
Your clients don't understand the value of BBB. I use the BBB on nearly every page of my site to lend credibility. In addition, I use it in the SERPs to show credibility. A+ BBB Rating!
-
Yes, I was with BBB at one point then a few clients said it was just a money grab and waste of my money. I agreed at the time and cancelled my membership. I never thought of it at the time about the value of the web link side of the membership. I will certainly reconsider renewing my membership. I am with the local chamber commerce for many years now.
-
One $400 link from BBB will be better than all those put together! Spend some money on BBB, your local chamber of commerce, and Yahoo Directory. "REAL" businesses have those (well maybe not Yahoo Directory).
-
Very interesting...This creates so many more questions. How can you find these particular directories in the first place? It's hard enough to find a massive number of directories to submit to just to start building some link backs, but to be picky about them will take even longer just to find one to post to. I figured, if it's posted manually, that would be ok, as long as it's not fully automated, which the one I mentioned is not fully automated, but it helps find the directories and track which ones you've submitted to and if you've been approved or not. I'm thinking it's ok as long as I don't buy into their automated services.
-
Daniel,
I highly advise against any such method of link building. The proper link building technique is to earn links. If the links are given away free to anyone, you did not earn them. Google often views free directory links as manipulative and "inorganic".
You need to closely examine each directory. Is it a quality directory? Can anyone get in or are there authentic standards which cause a percentage of websites to be rejected? Does the directory comply with Google's Guidelines?
I have worked with multiple clients who have been penalized as a direct result of similar links to what you are describing. The result is the clients had to contact each linking site and request the links be removed. This process is very time consuming and expensive. It costs many times more to remove the links then to get them in the first place. Once again, I strongly advise against ever using any directory submission site. Even if you do not earn a penalty, the links simply offer no value.
-
I use BuzzStream to track link building in the way you mention but there are other services out there. Even a simple Excel spreadsheet can do the trick.
-
www.knowem.com is a username checker. Their list is very extensive, but as Ben points out, I wouldn't suggest making submissions en masse. I hope that helps!
-
This particular service for directory submission is not an automatic submission, but it provides a list of directories to submit to, and it tracks what sites you've already visited/submitted to, and which ones of those approved your listing. It's good for keeping track of your link building as far as directory submissions go, it would be great if I can find one that tracks link building in general in a similar way. Anyone know of something like this?
-
You'd be hard pressed to find any automated directory submission that's white hat. In fact auto directory submissions are pretty much the definition of crap hat SEO.
This soon after Panda you'd have to be particularly brave to try en-masse directory submission. I'm not saying that it won't work or that it will have a negative impact on your site but I certainly wouldn't try it.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Is RSS feed syndication an effective link building strategy? Has anyone used it and had success?
This process was recommended to us and I am having trouble understanding exactly how it works. Does this type of link building directly benefit your site or is it an indirect process? Also, can you be penalized for republishing someone's content on your feed?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | marketingdepartment.ch0 -
Using PURL.org/GoodRelations for Schema Markup
Hello awesome MOZ community! Our agency uses JSON-LD for our local business schema markup. We validate our markup using Google's Structured Data Testing Tool. All good! Recently, I discovered a competing agency using our similar JSON-LD markup (that's ok) and "http://purl.org/goodrelations" markup. The latter appears to be–potentially–black hat SEO. Why? According to MOZ, "there is no conclusive evidence that this markup improves rankings." BUT, the purl.org markup has provided an opportunity for "keyword stuffing". Using purl.org markup, the agency has stuffed/used 66 of the same keywords into the validated markup. I would love to get feedback from the MOZ community. Can schema markup–of any kind–be used to "keyword stuff"? If so, why aren't sites getting penalized for this? Is this practice flying under the elusive algorithm radars? Thanks! Your feedback, insight, and snarky remarks are welcome 🙂 Cheers!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | SproutDigital0 -
What tools do you use to find scraped content?
This hasn’t been an issue for our company so far, but I like to be proactive. What tools do you use to find sites that may have scraped your content? Looking forward to your suggestions. Vic
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | VicMarcusNWI0 -
Anyone used clicksubmit.co.uk?
As title, anyone used them? their reviews all sound really positive (if they're real). The system sounds like an auto submitting back link generator - which can't be good?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | FDFPres0 -
Advice on using the disavow tool to remove hacked website links
Hey Everyone, Back in December, our website suffered an attack which created links to other hacked webistes which anchor text such as "This is an excellent time to discuss symptoms, fa" "Open to members of the nursing/paramedical profes" "The organs in the female reproductive system incl" The links were only visible when looking at the Cache of the page. We got these links removed and removed all traces of the attack such as pages which were created in their own directory on our server 3 months later I'm finding websites linking to us with similar anchor text to the ones above, however they're linking to the pages that were created on our server when we were attacked and they've been removed. So one of my questions is does this effect our site? We've seen some of our best performing keywords drop over the last few months and I have a feeling it's due to these spammy links. Here's a website that links to us <colgroup><col width="751"></colgroup>
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | blagger
| http://www.fashion-game.com/extreme/blog/page-9 | If you do view source or look at the cached version then you'll find a link right at the bottom left corner. We have 268 of these links from 200 domains. Contacting these sites to have these links removed would be a very long process as most of them probably have no idea that those links even exist and I don't have the time to explain to each one how to remove the hacked files etc. I've been looking at using the Google Disavow tool to solve this problem but I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not. We haven't had any warnings from Google about our site being spam or having too many spam links, so do we need to use the tool? Any advice would be very much appreciated. Let me know if you require more details about our problem. <colgroup><col width="355"></colgroup>
| | | |0 -
Hidden links in badges using javascript?
I have been looking at a strategy used by a division of Tripadvisor called Flipkey. They specialize in vacation home rentals and have been zooming up in the rankings over the past few months. One of the main off-page tactics that they have been using is providing a badge to property managers to display on their site which links back. The issue I have is that it seem to me that they are hiding a link which has keyword specific anchor text by using javascript. The site I'm looking at offers vacation rentals in Tamarindo (Costa Rica). http://www.mariasabatorentals.com/ Scroll down and you'll see a Reviews badge which shows reviews and a link back to the managers profile on Flipkey. **However, **when you look at the source code for the badge, this is what I see: Find Tamarindo Vacation Rentals on FlipKey Notice that there is a link for "tamarindo vacation rentals" in the code which only appears when JS is turned off in the browser. I am relatively new to SEO so to me this looks like a black hat tactic. But because this is Tripadvisor, I have to think that that I am wrong. Is this tactic allowed by Google since the anchor text is highly relevant to the content? And can they justify this on the basis that they are servicing users with JS turned off? I would love to hear from folks in the Moz community on this. Certainly I don't want to implement a similar strategy only to find out later that Google will view it as cloaking. Sure seems to be driving results for Flipkey! Thanks all. For the record, the Moz community is awesome. (Can't wait to start contributing once I actually know what I'm doing!)
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | mario330 -
Is it outside of Google's search quality guidelines to use rel=author on the homepage?
I have recently seen a few competitors using rel=author to markup their homepage. I don't want to follow suit if it is outside of Google's search quality guidelines. But I've seen very little on this topic, so any advice would be helpful. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | smilingbunny0 -
Auto-link inside your own site to the same domain is white-hat?
Hi, I am using a plugin in wordpress that make auto link for some certain keywords in my site suppose: My site is example.com My important keyword is: sample and across the domain example.com through out the content if there is the word: sample it is linked automatically to example.com I like your opinion about this practice, if it may carry any kind of punishment by SEs? Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Pooria0