Paid Directory - Whitehat or Blackhat?
-
Dear community,
Just a quick question:
Would you consider a directory as this one whitehat or blackhat SEO? http://mixyellowpages.com/cncat_add.php
You can add link to 50 web directories.
- No reciprocal link.
- 100% approved within 48 hours.
- Do follow link.
- Get one way link from quality sites.
- Pay only $ 15 No monthly fee.
Our SEO-agency is using these kinds of directories, so I just wanted to make sure, that this is a) Whitehat-SEO and b) will not harm our rankings.
Thanks,
David -
Hi David,
Directories are a difficult one. The recent Penguin updates (and to some degree, Panda) have pretty much destroyed the generic directories. However, the benefits of local directories and citations are still there! (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/The-Ultimate-List-50-Local-Business-Directories.aspx)
With regards to the particular directory that you're querying. The quality is low, even for directory standards. You're probably doing more harm than good by mass submitting to 50 directories that are linking out to all sorts of drop-shipping / foreign / low quality sites.
Matt Cutts also made a video explaining how Google treats Paid Directories. There are a few good directories that request a review fee that may be worth it - BOTW, Business.com, Yahoo, but the rest are just paid links.
What your agency are doing isn't the darkest of black-hat SEO, but it's definitely low quality, lazy and against Google guidelines. 50 directories probably won't harm your site. However if the majority of your backlink profile is made up of directories, it definitely won't be doing your site any favours.
tl;dr
- Local Directories - Good
- Genuine Review Fee Based Directories - Possible Benefits
- Mass Submissions / Paid Directories - Bad
If you'd like to read more, I wrote a post about my thoughts on directories back in September that I feel still rings true!
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 many Directory Web sites still active?
After a long period, near about 6 years I want to know what kind of Web Directories still active? Is that kind of Directory links help SERP for gaining Ranks?
Link Building | | nopain8100 -
Is it worth to get links from startup directorys?
Hi, I have a startup that connects people with lawyers. There are a lot of directories of startups. These are legitimate directories and not like the spammy directories. Is it worth getting links from these types of directories? Let me know.
Link Building | | RafeTLouis0 -
Local SEO - Directory Submissions Not Counting Towards External Links
I'm trying to raise the authority of a clients website. It's a local business so I'm submitting it to various applicable high authority business directories to earn more external links. I've submitted it to about 15 directories so far; however when I run Moz's Open Site Explorer, it doesn't state that any of these directories are linking. It's been about 3 weeks now so I assume that's enough time for the directory submissions to be indexed by Google. Has anyone else run into this problem, and if so how did you solve this so these links are counted?
Link Building | | reidsteven750 -
Links from Directory's
I have been looking at the Directory's recommended on the SEOMOZ site. All of those that I have looked into do not appear to have a page rank for the actual page that my link would be appearing on. They all appear to offer N/A as the reply.Is this a problem? Thanks in advance for any replies!
Link Building | | Babyshoe0 -
What is the purpose of submitting your blog articles to directories?
I was wondering what the purpose of submitting your blog articles to directories are. Doesn't it require enough "points" or "+1's" for it to become a "do-follow" link? People on the forum talk about automating directory submission, can anyone recommend a good software for this? I've been hearing that Google Penalizes you for article submission because it looks like spam?
Link Building | | kevinyu10290 -
Submitting to Directories
What do you look for when submitting to directories? I'm going through the Web Directories list that SEOMoz has put out and trying to decide which are the best. I'm just wondering if anybody has any suggestions as far as what to look for before submitting. I know PageRank is kind of an old metric but I do seem to see a correlation between PageRank and directory cost. If I submit to a directory category with a PR of 4 or 5 it seems like it will cost me anywhere between $50-$300.
Link Building | | TRICORSystems0 -
International link directories
Where can I find a list of free international directories that worth submitting?
Link Building | | sesertin0 -
Thoughts on 2 directories?
Thoughts on ScrubTheWeb.com and SearchSight.com ? would directories like these be a good idea? We are a b to b company... Thanks!
Link Building | | inhouseninja0