Directories
-
Hi All,
Some saying getting listed in hundreds of directories has no real SEO benefit. Some saying opposite. Some saying there are only one directory to concerned with, the Yahoo Directory.
What are your opinions on this question after all Google's Pandas and Penguins ?
Thank you
-
Hi Webdeal. http://addurl.nu/ has an up to date list of quality website directories. I hope this helps!
-
I think Dana did a perfect justice to that answers, All I wanted to add here is that when finalizing the list of directories always consider niche instead of the general directories.
-
There are definitely more directories, in addition to Yahoo, that are still very worthwhile. I think the key is...balance. If the only links your site has are from directories, then they aren't going to be as valued. if you have a good balance of inbound links from directories of other sites, then you're okay.
Here's my "fast and dirty" list of things to check before you decide to get listed in a directory:
- How old is the directory? Older is better
- What's the PageRank of the Directory? Higher is better, above 3 is better, below that forget about it.
- What is the cache date of the directory? (more than 2 weeks, forget about it)
- Does the directory have a "free" inclusion option? Great! That's a good thing.
- How many inbound links does the directory have (use OSE), more is better
- What's the Alexa rank of the directory? Lower is better
- What country is the directory based in? Some are better than others. I'll let you make that call
I recently updated an excellent list of 100 reputable Web Directories just a few days ago. You can view it here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2012/03/high-pagerank-web-directory-listings.html!
I hope this helps!
Dana
-
There are definitely more directories, in addition to Yahoo, that are still very worthwhile. I think the key is...balance. If the only links your site has are from directories, then they aren't going to be as valued. if you have a good balance of inbound links from directories of other sites, then you're okay.
Here's my "fast and dirty" list of things to check before you decide to get listed in a directory:
- How old is the directory? Older is better
- What's the PageRank of the Directory? Higher is better, above 3 is better, below that forget about it.
- What is the cache date of the directory? (more than 2 weeks, forget about it)
- Does the directory have a "free" inclusion option? Great! That's a good thing.
- How many inbound links does the directory have (use OSE), more is better
- What's the Alexa rank of the directory? Lower is better
- What country is the directory based in? Some are better than others. I'll let you make that call
I recently updated an excellent list of 100 reputable Web Directories just a few days ago. You can view it here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2012/03/high-pagerank-web-directory-listings.html!
I hope this helps!
Dana
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
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
-
How to rank if you are an aggregator or a directory of resource?
Most of the SEO suggestions (great quality content, long form content, engagement rate/time on the page, authority inbound links ) apply to content oriented site. But what should you do if you are an aggregator or a resource directory? You aim is to send the user faster to other site they are looking for or provide ranking about the resources. In fact at a very basic level you are competing for search engine traffic because they are doing same things. You may have done a hand crafted, human created resource that is better than what algorithms are showing. And your site likely to have lot more outgoing links than content. You know you are better (or getting better) since repeat visitors keep coming back. So in these days of Search engines, what a resource directory or aggregator site do to rank? Because even directories need first time visitors till they start coming back again.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Maayboli0 -
Does it hurt your SEO to have an inaccessible directory in your site structure?
Due to CMS constraints, there may be some nodes in our site tree that are inaccessible and will automatically redirect to their parent folder. Here's an example: www.site.com/folder1/folder2/content, /folder2 redirects to /folder1. This would only be for the single URL itself, not the subpages (i.e. /folder1/folder2/content and anything below that would be accessible). Is there any real risk in this approach from a technical SEO perspective? I'm thinking this is likely a non-issue but I'm hoping someone with more experience can confirm. Another potential option is to have /folder2 accessible (it would be 100% identical to /folder1, long story) and use a canonical tag to point back to /folder1. I'm still waiting to hear if this is possible. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | digitalcrc0 -
Directory Listings with anchor text = Should we just Delete them all?
Hi Dr Moz'ers So our ex-contracted SEO "experts" have a enlisted our website to 40 odd directories with the same key word and copy. Is it best to just delete them all to avoid a possible negative SEO/Google outcome? Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | supps0 -
Citation/Business Directory Question...
A company I work for has two numbers... one for the std call centre and one for tracking SEO. Now, if local citation/business directory listings have the same address but different numbers, will this affect local/other SEO results? Any help is greatly appreciated! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | geniusenergyltd0 -
On-Site Directory - Delete or Keep?
We have 2 ecommerce sites. Both have been hit by Penguin (no warnings in WMT) and we're in the process of cleaning up backlinks. We have link directories on both sites. They've got links that are relevant to the sites but also links that aren't relevant. And they're big directories - we're talking thousands of links to other sites. What's the best approach here? Do we leave it alone, delete the whole thing, or manually review and keep highly relevant links but get rid of the rest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingof50 -
CSS gallery, directories, infographic anjd video sites?
If we have some good content (info graphic and video) is there anything wrong with submitting to as many video and info graphic directories and video hosts as possible or are 99% of them as bad as submitting to directories and would we be looking at a penalty? Also another side question, are CSS gallery's and niche pacific directories such as running a printing company and finding directories on (graphic design, craft and art) a bad idea to submit to.in any quantity are they as bad as the free for all directories that Google doesn't like. We compete in a not very hard niche and need to build a few low authority links (build out our link graph) but not low enough to be classed as low quality (Google penalty's in the future). Most of our competitors are happy to submit to anything but we wan the site to last.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Directory VS Article Directory
Which got hit harder in penguin update. I was looking at SEER Interactive backlink profile (the SEO company that didn't rank for it's main keyword phrases) and noticed a pretty big trend on why it might not rank for its domain name. SEER was in a majority of anchor text, many coming from directories. i'm guessing THEY were effected because they matched the exact match domain link profile rule I'm not an expert programmer, but if i was playing "Google Programmer" I would think the Algo update went something like. If ((exact match domain) & (certain % anchor text==domain) & (certain % of anchor text== partial domain + services/company)) { tank the rankings } So back to the question, do you think that this update had a lot to do with directories, article directories, or neither. Is article directories still a legit way to get links. (not ezine)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Duplicate Content from Article Directories
I have a small client with a website PR2, 268 links from 21 root domains with mozTrusts 5.5, MozRank 4.5 However whenever I check in google for the amount of link: Google always give the response none. My client has a blog and many articles on the blog. However they have submitted their blog article every time to article directories as well, plain and simle creating duplicate and content. Is this the reason why their link: is coming up as none? Is there something to correct the situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | danielkamen0