Are links from directories still good practice?
-
Ok, so I am new at "link building"....which of course I have read furiously on how that philosophy is changed, it's a goal, not so much a process. I am focusing on great content, social sharing, etc.
BUT, I see competitors still getting links from some of the directories that I have found listed on Moz as being "good" directories to list in. For example, yelllow pages, manta, ibegin, hot frog, etc.
Do I have the terminology totally twisted here? Is it still good practice to get a couple links from these directories. Or is this practice completely the wrong thing to do post Panda & Penquin.
Thanks guys!
-
Thank you so much! These are exactly the "layman's terms" answers I needed. Seems like I was on the right track by your responses. Gotta love this Q&A Forum. Saved me a couple times now
Thanks!!!
-
I agree with the comment above. I think your priorities and focus for content and social sharing are key to your long-term success. Authorized directories are still essential (for now). So DMOZ and the quality directories will be helpful to supplement your long-term goals. Some of the business directories set the links as a nofollow, so you want to research that. Hope that helps.
-
Hey Courtney,
Local directories are still valuable, however there is a difference between **local listings and directories. **
There are thousands of directories out there that hold no value for your website For example, http://www.freedirectory-list.com/free-directory-list.php check out all the directories listed on this site.
Instead of submitting your site to all of those directories, check out local listings such as yelp, yellowpages, google places, bing local, Yahoo's directory, superpages, citysearch.
-
It might be helpful to think more in terms of what a link actually offers rather than what format it takes. If there is a website that people use to find organisations like yours then it makes sense to be there whether that website is in directory format, blog format or any other format. If a website has no apparent value in itself move on.
The problems with directories really came about from two issues:
1. Directories that only existed in order to link to websites.
There are still thousands of sites with names like seolinksbymat.com that quite clearly are only ever used to get links. Why should being listed there demonstrate any authority/validation for a site?2. People went a bit mad for it
People love shortcuts. When presented with the opportunity to either work hard to get valid links or just submit them to directories lots of people did the latter. Before long services appeared that submitted your site to thousands of them, which i turn caused more directories to be created. Big old mess and Google got bored of it.Avoid those two things and actually there is nothing wrong with a link from a website that happens to be in directory format. If those links are just a small part of a bigger picture and come from sites that have inherent value then you shouldn't be scared of them.
The SEO industry loves to see things as black and white. It's easy, it's lazy and it is wrong. Everything is bad when it is done badly. Directories are very easy to do badly, but you should never be worried about getting a link from something like Yellow pages.
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
-
What happens when a de-indexed subdomain is redirected to another de-indexed subdomain? What happens to the link juice?
Hi all, We are planning to de-index and redirect a sub domain A to sub domain B. Consequently we now need to d-index sub domain B also. What happens now to the link juice or page rank they gained from hundreds and thousands of backlinks? Will there be any ranking impact on main domain? Backlinks of these sub domains are not much relevant to main domain content. Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz1 -
How to take down a sub domain which is receiving many spammy back-links?
Hi all, We have a sub domain which has less engagement for last few years. Eventually many spammy back links pointed to this sub domain. There are relevant back links too. We have deleted most of the pages which are employing spammy content or which have spammy back links. Still I'm confused whether to take this sub domain down or keep it. The confusion between "relevant backlinks might be helping our website" and "spammy backlinks are affecting to drop in rankings"? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Links to category pages unnatural?
If people are linking to your site, it would seem natural that the vast majority of those links would point to the homepage, product page, or a article/content page. Let's say you have 100 links pointing to your site, and 40 of them are pointing to category pages. Would this seem unnatural? Does Google or other search engines have a way of determining this as a factor in ascertaining whether the links are natural or not? Is there a rule of thumb when it comes to the pages that are linked to on your site?
Algorithm Updates | | inhouseseo0 -
Post penguin & panda update. what would be a good seo strategies for brand new sites
Hi there. I have the luxury of launching a few sites after the penguin and panda updates, so I can start from scratch and hopefully do it right. I will get SEO companies to help me with this so i just want to ask for advices on what would be a good strategies for a brand new site. my understand of the new updates is this content and user experience is important, like how long they spend, how many pages etc social media is important. we intent to engage FB and twitter alot. in New Zealand, not too many people use google+ so we will probbaly just concentrate on the first two hopefully we will try to get people to share our website via social media, apparent that is important should only concentrate on high quality backlinks with a good diverse set of alt tags, but concentrate on branding rather than keywords. Am i correct to say that so far? if that is the principle, what would be the strategy to implement these goals? Links to any articles would also be great please. Love learning. i just want to do this right and hopefully try to future proof the sites against updates as possible. i guess quality content and links will most likely to be safe. Thank you for your help.
Algorithm Updates | | btrinh0 -
Need List of new high pr free local USA based directories list.
Need List of new high pr free local USA based directories list. Anyone can help ?
Algorithm Updates | | mnkpso0 -
Has Google lost its mind? I am the only link in every SERP for a query?
I run a small online debutante dress store and have been doing some onsite seo recently. Anyways, when I search for the search query "deb dress style guide" my site is the only search result for the first three pages of Google Australia (my target market). Just endless links to my site. I have competitors in my niche who all have websites worthy of listing in the SERP as shown when you google "deb dresses". Can anyone explain whats going on?
Algorithm Updates | | mydebdress20 -
"We've processed your reconsideration request for www...." - Could this be good news?
Hey, We recently had a Google Penguin related links warning and I've been going through Google WMT and removing the most offensive links. We have requested resubmission a couple of times and have had the standard response of: "
Algorithm Updates | | ChrisHolgate
Site violates Google's quality guidelines We received a request from a site owner to reconsider your site for compliance with Google's Webmaster Guidelines. We've reviewed your site and we still see links to your site that violate our quality guidelines. Specifically, look for possibly artificial or unnatural links pointing to your site that could be intended to manipulate PageRank. Examples of unnatural linking could include buying links to pass PageRank or participating in link schemes. We encourage you to make changes to comply with our quality guidelines. Once you've made these changes, please submit your site for reconsideration in Google's search results. If you find unnatural links to your site that you are unable to control or remove, please provide the details in your reconsideration request. If you have additional questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support.
" On the 5th September after spending another couple more days removing the most prolific offenders we resubmitted the site again and again got the automated response saying they had received our request. A week later on the 13th September we got a slightly different response of : "
We've processed your reconsideration request We received a request from a site owner to reconsider how we index your site. We've now reviewed your site. When we review a site, we check to see if it's in violation of our Webmaster Guidelines. If we don't find any problems, we'll reconsider our indexing of your site. If your site still doesn't appear in our search results, check our Help Center for steps you can take. " I left it another couple of weeks to see if we'd get a slightly more in depth response however so far there has been nothing. I'll be honest in not being entirely sure what this means. The e-mails says simultaneously 'We've now reviewed your site' (as in past tense) but then continues with "If we don't find any problems" which suggests a future tense. I’m unsure from reading the e-mail whether they have indeed reviewed it (and just not told us the outcome) or whether it’s just a delayed e-mail saying that they have received the reconsideration request. Of course, if I received this e-mail off anyone other than Google I would have thought I was still in the dog house but the fact that it differs from the standard ‘Site violates Google’s quality guidelines’ message leads me to believe that something has changed and they may be happy with the site or at least happier than they were previously. Has anybody else received the latter message and has anybody managed to determine exactly what it means? Cheers guys!0 -
Why is a link considered active, but is no longer on the page?
How come links sometimes show up in OSE or Yahoo Site Explorer and then when you go to the page, they're not there anymore? Why is a link indexed or considered active but is no longer on the page?
Algorithm Updates | | MichaelWeisbaum0