Which directories to use?
-
I've recently has a conversation with a colleague regarding which directories to use when link building. In her opinion we should use only the ones that are relevant and nothing else. For example if you're working on a travel website, you should only submit either to travel directories or local directories (based on the business location). In my opinion yes we should submit to these directories but then you'll reach a limit and then you need to submit to general directories that have the "travel" category, even if the business is in NY and the directory is in India, as long as it is a good directory and has the relevant category.
What is your opinion about this?
-
The link is dead, it goes here http://www.whitelistproject.com/
-
I agree with most of what Tom pointed out.
Directories in general are outdated and not many people use them. Thus they have no value and rightly so.
However, this is not true for every industry. There are some animals out there for some industries like ThomasNet (Paid), Designt2Part (Paid), Eng-Tips, Efunda, are all good for manufactures and engineering. The difference here is these sites actually add value to users looking for companies and services.
Additionally, DMOZ.org still seems worth while getting but I wouldn't fret if they don't add you.
Hope that helps
-
The problem is not the client, but the marketing agency I work for. They do link submission to directories and if I want to work there, I have to do it too. I'll have a look in to that list, thank you.
-
Who's the SEO consultant here? You or the client? If they won't listen to your recommendations and want to rely on crap tactics, let them get on with it themselves.
If you must use directories, I would do as your colleague says and only use industry specific ones, or location specific ones. General directories are not only link-farms but they will not be able to pass on strength to your website due to indexing issues.
Check out the SEOMoz Directories list for some of the 'better' ones out there.
-
Thank you but this client really wants directory submission so I have no chance. Can you please answer my question? Thank you.
-
My advice would be not to use any directories at all.
Directories offer very little user value (no real web user uses directories any more - at a push they use very local ones) and consequently they offer very little SEO value. What I have seen consistently since the turn of the year are links coming from directories being completely devalued. It has been a common theme in the Moz forums that people experience ranking drops for homepage keywords, with no apparent penalty. A look at their link profile shows that the majority of their links are coming from directories, pointing to the homepage. They're low quality links and Google has been quite proactive in devaluing directory links on the fly every month or so.
There are infinitely better ways to earn high quality links to your website. Don't bother wasting your time and money with directories and focus your efforts elsewhere. Start creating content that is going to accrue high quality links over a sustained period of time.
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
-
A lot of blogs use wordpress or blogspot, are these blogs still useful for SEO in terms of linkbuilding, or should they be avoided?
I am very new to linkbuilding and SEO as a whole, so please forgive my ignorance. Reaching out to bloggers is a common tactic, but I've found a lot of people tend to blog with the assistance of wordpress or blogspot. I was wondering whether these blogs are still useful for SEO or if it is best to avoid them? Thanks in advance, Lewis
Link Building | | Samstore0 -
Unnatural Linking Using Webdsite Themes
I am working on a website that last year received an email from Google via webmaster tools talking about the linking profile. The email suggested that the website had unnatural activity (links) and that the webmaster needed to investigate before filing for a reconsideration. After having looked at the link profile using OSE, it was easy to see the problem. Thousands of inbound links with the exact anchor text. Here is the BIG problem. The tactics used by the unamed SEO agency prior to me were to embed links in to the footer of web themes? At this stage it is unclear as to where you can downlaod or purchase the web themes but it's obvious that the problem is simply going to escalate. The domain in question is www.teamtactics.co.uk Any thoughts on the above would be much appreciated - at this point I am trying to find the place were the themes are available for download. Any ideas much appreciated. shivun
Link Building | | seohive-2227200 -
Getting two BOTW.org listings? Regular drirectory + blog directory?
I have a start-up website. It's a niche market that's not all that competitive. I'm trying to get going with some basic link building, and I'm trying to focus for the time being on some recommended directories: BOTW, yahoo, business.com, etc. I already have a regular BOTW directory listing, accepted a few days ago. I'm wondering if it's worth also getting a BOTW blog directory listing? So two BOTW listings, the first pointing to the homepage, the second would point to the blog. If there is meaningful link juice to be passed, would there be an advantage of having two links? Or will the one I already have suffice? Also, since the site is new, I only have a few blog posts. Is BOTW likely to reject me because my blog is too thin? The posts I have are content-heavy (1000-2500 words per entry), but there's just not a large total quantity yet. Normally I wouldn't consider it, but they're having a cyber-monday sale today where it's 50% off the regular price, so it makes the decision easier. Thanks.
Link Building | | bluekite770 -
Wordtracker Link Builder Tool - Anyone Use it?
I have been using Wordtracker for about 10 years for my keyword research. They have recently unveiled a new link builder tool. I was wondering if anyone had used it or could give me some feedback on it
Link Building | | TheGrid0 -
Link building without using trademarked names
If a particular brand's terms & conditions stated that you cannot use their trademarked names in your backlinking strategy, what are some good ways to rank higher for those names?
Link Building | | aidin30000 -
Link building and directory links to a new site
I have three new sites all hosted on the same server in the same public html folder and each site is in a different folder inside the public html folder. These sites are a listing of live music venues in different cities in Texas. Should I link these sites together to increase page rank to each other and also put key search phrases in the anchor text and place these links in the text in the center of each page of each site to make the links more effective? Also, because the sites are about a year old they don't have many inlinks yet. If i submit them to about 50 directories will Google not like this because there are way more directory links than natural links? I've been told that it is trouble to have more than about 50% directory links compared to natural links. Thanks in advance for your answers! Take care,
Link Building | | Ron10
Ron0 -
Is still interesting to use aggregators?
Primeiramente, desculpe pelo inglês, pois sou brasileiro. Gostaria de saber, se com a chegada do Panda (que ainda não veio ao Brasil), os agregadores de blogs poderão ser prejudicados à ponto de diminuir os ranks dos links que recebemos. Na verdade, quero saber se ainda compensa usar agregadores de blogs que não utilizam nofollow. Agradeço!
Link Building | | sempretops0 -
Which Directory Sites to Choose?
Hi All I am a newbie to SEO and have a quick Q. Assuming that appropriate steps would be to; a) Ensure all onsite matters are are correct, title tags, meta descriptions, redirects, canonical issues. b) Submit to Directories c) Build Links I am approaching step b) Which Directories are worth submitting to? For those which require payment, how can I decide which are value for money or should I just use SEOMOZ list of links and assume that theyre worth the $50 - $100 if my higher ranking competitors have links from these directories. Also, can this be looked opon as grey/black hat 'buying of links'? Thank you Sean www.pretavoir.co.uk
Link Building | | seanmccauley0