Search directories, are they worth it??
-
I pay Yahoo, sorry Aabaco.... a lot of money every year to be listed on all the little search directories. I'm told this helps my SEO efforts, but I don't see where? Is there a page on MOZ that would tell me this, I'm interested to know the truth about this? I'm kind of new to seo so please answer lightly...
-
Happy to be of help
PS thank you Miriam
-
I get it now, thank you for that answer & I love MOZ, such a great place to learn.
-
Thank you for taking the time to respond to me! I appreciate your answer.
-
Hey Miss Thurman,
Great question. No doubt you've been googling ways to quickly increase your site's rankings and one of those is to get external links and one of the easiest ways to get external links is to put your info on a ton of online directories... Unfortunately that information is outdated. Nowadays, the links you receive from online directories are basically worthless. The only thing the directories are good for any more is having your business info out there for other people to find.
So I highly recommend that you check local directories to ensure that your business information is correct, but beyond that, I wouldn't worry about them that much. MOZ has a service called Local Listing which will automatically update your businesses' info across a number of listing sites, that others also pull their info from. It keeps you up to date on your submissions, whether there is a duplicate listing, or incorrect listings that need to be removed (some they remove for you, others must be removed by you).
-
If you're talking about being added and local directories you can do that using mozlocal this will increase your local presence but search directories that are random directories for the sake of being directories or not relevant are worthless and will harm you unfortunately.
If you are listed in a directory like recommended by moz and other high-quality listing like distilled.net/u or University
You are in good hands. You have to be very careful of the type of directory in which you place your website.
If it looks little fishy don't do it
I hope this is of help,
tom
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
-
Which directories are relevant for UK
Hi there, I was referred to this community by Moz staff, as I was just wondering if all of the suggested listings in the online presence checker are relevant if you are based in the Uk? Many of them seem to be very much set up for companies based in the states and companies like Foursquare seem almost impossible to list on successfully, with no way to actually contact them. What I have ascertained is that the incorrect information that is revealed by the online checker is not necessarily incorrect it is just the order that Google lists the information over here is different. Lastly I just wondered if there are any drawbacks to using Brightlocal as a citation service, over and above other similar companies? They seem by far the most economical option... Thanks in advance. 🙂
Local Listings | | Frog-Marketing0 -
Optimal URL Structure for a Multi-City Directory
I need help choosing the ideal URL structure for a multi-city directory. The current URL structure is /category which is okay because we are only in one geography. However, we're now expanding to other cities so we are reevaluating the best way of structuring the URL. The three options I have are: example.com/city/category Pro: Follows the user around with the city after the root (like language) Con: Possible short-term traffic loss. Build page authority on new URLs Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {city category} example.com/city/ would have to be a URL and a general landing page. This would mean that /category would no longer exist example.com/category/city The website is currently set-up with /category but is now expanding beyond Toronto Pro: /category would still exist so no short-term SEO issues Pro: SEO Benefit for terms: {general category} example.com/category/ is already a URL and would display results based on proximity example.com/category (geo recognizes city) Pro: Clean URL Con: We're not Ticketmaster I was able to find major directory sites with very strong SEO doing it all three ways above. City First https://www.yelp.ca/c/toronto/restaurants https://angel.co/r/toronto/marketing/jobs https://www.redflagdeals.com/in/toronto/deals/c/cell-phones/ https://www.bizbash.com/new-york/venues Category First https://eventup.com/venues/new-york-ny/ https://www.yellowpages.ca/search/si/1/Restaurants/Toronto+ON https://www.weddingwire.ca/wedding-venues/ontario https://www.livenation.com/cities/130465/toronto-on No City in URL https://www.ticketmaster.ca/
Local Listings | | Neumarkets.com1 -
How do I get an answer box for branded search?
How do I get an answer box for branded search? If you Google "Sagefrog Marketing group, the ansewr box in the right hand rail no longer appears. Not sure what happened. What kind of markup do I need?
Local Listings | | Matthew.E0 -
How do I rank inside the knowledge panel in the "people also search for" section?
Hello fellow Mozzers, In Google's knowledge panel there is a section at the bottom that says "people also search for" and a list of competitors is displayed. I'm hoping to get some information I can use to get my client listed there on top of the local organic results. The more SERP presence, the better. Attached image should provide clarity to those who are confused. I suspect I know the answer to this question, but since I can't find a source to verify my beliefs, I'm crowdsourcing. Thanks in advance! NhoihY1
Local Listings | | brettmandoes0 -
Google Business listing algorithm when listing the top 3 locations in Google Search
Hi, awhile back I decided to make separate website contact pages by location and Google Business listings(some being just a service location with no address displaying) for Greenshield Pest Control Inc to help better target per city key term searches. Please refer to screenshot A http://puu.sh/qxWjH/6153c0edf2.png and B http://puu.sh/qxWfJ/bff7ad02cf.png. A) Searching "pest control belleville" brings up the Belleville Greenshield business listing in the top 3 as desired. B) Searching "pest control brockville" brings up the Kingston Greenshield listing in the top 3. While they do provide service for the Brockville location we don't have a dedicated Brockville service location and listing setup. I'm happy the Greenshield listing shows up in the search for case B but my question is does anyone know why Google decided for two out of the top 3 listings(Greenshield and Enviro Guard Plus Inc) to use a non-Brockville business listing? Kingston is 45mins away from Brockville and Harrowsmith about 1 hour away. Is there a certain distance range a Google business listing has to be for it to have a chance to be included in the search besides the actual city I'm searching for?
Local Listings | | FPK0 -
Do you need contact details (NAP) on every page of your website for local search ranking ?
We’ve got a clients site which doesn't have the contact details on every page, all the contact details are on the /contact page which is using the schema.org local business markup Some sites that our outranking us locally have their contact details on all pages, where as others only have it on the contact page also. Is having your contact details on every page a ranking factor for local search ?
Local Listings | | mike8780 -
Local Directories: What are the best practices for manually updating over 500 listings?
We are currently using an aggregator for a client, but we will be manually updating 5 different local directories that are not included in the distribution for over 500 locations. I am wondering if there are any local experts that have a set of best practices/processes for this type of scenario?
Local Listings | | PureVisibility0 -
Google Local Listing Ranking/Traffic Metrics in the Google Search Console?
A client of mine asked me if it was possible to see local listing data (ranking/traffic stats) in the Google Search Console for a URL. I figured the Google Search Console only shows organic metrics not 3-pack/local listing performance. However I could be mistaken. Does the Google Search Console report this?
Local Listings | | RosemaryB0