Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      What is your Brand Authority?
      Moz

      What is your Brand Authority?

      Check yours now
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Research & Trends
    3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    4. Are link directories still effective? is there a risk?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Are link directories still effective? is there a risk?

    White Hat / Black Hat SEO
    7
    9
    2706
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • binpress
      binpress last edited by

      We've contracted a traditional SEO firm, mostly for link building. As part of their plan they want to submit our site to a large list of link directories, and we're not sure if that's a good option. As far as we know, those directories have been ineffective for a long time now, and we're wondering if there is the chance of getting penalized by google. When I asked the agency their opinion about that, they gave me the following answer -

      1. Updated and optimized by us - We are partnered with these sites and control quality of these sites.
      2. Unique Class C IP address - Links from unique Referring Class C IP plays a very important role in SEO.
      3. Powered by high PR backlinks
      4. Domain Authority (DA) Score of over 20
      5. These directories are well categorized.

      So they actually control those directories themselves, which we think is even worse. I'm wondering what does the Moz community think about link directory submission - is there still something to be gained there, is there any risk involved, etc.

      Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Dr-Pete
        Dr-Pete Staff @AlanBleiweiss last edited by

        Pretty good advice all-around here, but I just want to second Alan that the risk of this kind of focused directory-based link scheme (and it is a scheme, if they've built their own network) is very high. This is white-hat sermonizing. I'll be honest - yes, those links could help you in the short-term, and they could improve your ranking. The problem is that, if this scheme goes down, you will very likely be penalized, and you could lose everything. The SEO company will walk away, but you won't.

        Solid, relevant directories, in moderation, are fine. Worst case, they may not carry the weight you want them to, and they're just part of a larger strategy. When you start gaming the system, though, you're facing the very real risk of a Capital-P Penalty.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • AlanBleiweiss
          AlanBleiweiss last edited by

          The most important factor here is the notion that you can go to one source for a high volume of links where the cost per link is next to nothing.  We can argue about what "next to nothing" means, however essentially if any link is not placed on a site or directory where the quality, uniqueness, authority, relevance or trust of that site / directory are strong, that individual link is suspect.

          While it can be argued that a new site / directory doesn't yet have authority and thus such a site /directory can still be okay to get a link from, it means the other four signals need to be that much stronger to compensate for that lack of authority.

          If the company claiming to offer these services is willing to provide you a spreadsheet listing all the directories they intend to get links for you, go ahead and look at some of those and judge for yourself.

          Directories are held to an even higher standard in regard to relevance and trust because the overwhelming majority of "directories" out there are craptastic bogus scams created purely for SEO.

          Of the hundreds of thousands of links I have reviewed during client audits this year, I can assure you only a small fraction of links from directories were real, and even a smaller fraction of those provided any value.

          Do not get caught up in marketing nonsense.  Everything you listed in their claims about why you should trust them is a massive red flag to me that you'll get ripped off.

          On a final note, while I am delighted that the previous answers here paved the warning way before I joined this discussion, I need to speak up about the potential for harm.  The potential for a penalty here is ALARMINGLY HIGH.

          Relying on directory links from a company like the one that pitched you is EXTREMELY DANGEROUS in 2013. Most of the site owners who hire me to do a forensic audit have been penalized manually or algorithmically and most of those have had ugly directory link based inbound link profile madness.

          Dr-Pete 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
          • zoicaremus
            zoicaremus @kadesmith last edited by

            Hello Eran,

            I'm 100% with kadesmith at each point he covers. So we are two now (small community :). I can add a few more things:

            -> It's easy to fall in the "over optimized anchor text" pit when working with directories. At least if they do it like most of the people did it in the past. I had at least 1 website penalized because of these. If I were you I would approach them in this way: I would ask for what details do they need to submit to directories and then check if they would use the same anchor text in all directories. If they use the brand name as anchor text they might be aware of last changes. If not they are probably just doing it to get some money and don't really care for what happens.

            -> link velocity -> is related to the historical changes in link profiles - and it mentioned by Google in some of their patents. If people submit to directories like they did in the past they will get a lot of links in a short amount of time. Google is able to detect this, and at least in theory is able to do some interesting stuff like: temporarily rank the website lower and wait to see if the owner of the website takes action to remove the links. This is not 100% confirmed, but personally I would take it into account.

            So, directories are not necessarily a problem. But if they handle it the "old school" way, then probably it will be.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • NeilBelliveau
              NeilBelliveau last edited by

              I think directories can still be beneficial if done right and with quality ones. With that said they should be done on a limited basis and not over done.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • trainSEM
                trainSEM last edited by

                Directories are fine, if they are terribly relevant to the niche and real people use them. They should be added slowly, no more than one per week. This particular offer, therefore, is a waste of money and a possible risk.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • kadesmith
                  kadesmith last edited by

                  Sorry Eran, I'll try to address this more specifically:

                  1. As part of their plan they want to submit our site to a large list of link directories (First red flag),
                  2. and we're not sure if that's a good option (trust your gut).
                  3. As far as we know, those directories have been ineffective for a long time now (correct)
                  4. and we're wondering if there is the chance of getting penalized by google (small chance)
                  5. When I asked the agency their opinion about that, they gave me the following answer -
                  6. Updated and optimized by us - We are partnered with these sites and control quality of these sites. (second red flag)
                  7. Unique Class C IP address - Links from unique Referring Class C IP plays a very important role in SEO. (third red flag, trying to game the system is never good.  You'll eventually get caught.)
                  8. Powered by high PR backlinks (I love buzzwords)
                  9. Domain Authority (DA) Score of over 20 (Buzzwords are often code for, "as management, I'm trying to sound like I know what I'm talking about and I hope you can't see through me")
                  10. These directories are well categorized. (So are grocery stores...so what?)

                  So they actually control those directories themselves, which we think is even worse (it is). I'm wondering what does the Moz community think about link directory submission (sorry, I'm not the community, just a member of it so I can't speak for all of them) - is there still something to be gained there (not really), is there any risk involved (very little), etc (not really sure what you are looking for specifically here, but hope my answers help.)

                  zoicaremus 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • binpress
                    binpress @kadesmith last edited by

                    Hi Kade,

                    Thanks for the answer. We are doing all that you said, plus we generate a lot of content internally. We hired this firm specifically for link building to augment our other efforts. Submissions to link directories are only a small part of their offering, and I was wondering what the Moz community felt about it. I hope someone has more specific information to share about this topic.

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • kadesmith
                      kadesmith last edited by

                      Typically you can trust that gut feeling that says, if it doesn't sound right, it probably isn't.

                      My guess is that this firm has a flat rate that they charge and they guarantee x number of links built per month.  I'd shy away from a strategy like that.

                      I don't feel that you can say all link directories are bad, but I wouldn't spend much, if any, time building links in that manner.  Not sure how much you are paying for their services, but I'd probably take the $200-$400 a month and hire some content creators, a social media manager, or something that has more value.

                      binpress 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
                      • 1 / 1
                      • First post
                        Last post

                      Got a burning SEO question?

                      Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                      Start my free trial


                      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.

                      • See all categories

                      Related Questions

                      • ShawnW

                        Sitewide nav linking from subdomain to main domain

                        I'm working on a site that was heavily impacted by the September core update. You can see in the attached image the overall downturn in organic in 2019 with a larger hit in September bringing Google Organic traffic down around 50%. There are many concerning incoming links from 50-100 obviously spammy porn-related websites to just plain old unnatural links. There was no effort to purchase any links so it's unclear how these are created. There are also 1,000s of incoming external links (most without no-follow and similar/same anchor text) from yellowpages.com. I'm trying to get this fixed with them and have added it to the disavow in the meantime. I'm focusing on internal links as well with a more specific question: If I have a sitewide header on a blog located at blog.domain.com that has links to various sections on domain.com without no-follow tags, is this a possible source of the traffic drops and algorithm impact? The header with these links is on every page of the blog on the previously mentioned subdomain. **More generally, any advice as to how to turn this around? ** The website is in the travel vertical. 90BJKyc

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ShawnW
                        0
                      • Boodreaux

                        New Flurry of thousands of bad links from 3 Spammy websites. Disavow?

                        I also discovered that a website www.prlog.ru put 32 links to my website.  It is a russian site.  It has a 32% spam score. Is that high? I think I need to disavow. Another spammy website link has spam score of 16% with with several thousand links. I added one link to the site medexplorer.com 6 years ago and it was fine. Now it has thousands of links. Should I disavow all three?

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Boodreaux
                        0
                      • RosemaryB

                        Site Footer Links Used for Keyword Spam

                        I was on the phone with a proposed web relaunch firm for one of my clients listening to them talk about their deep SEO knowledge. I cannot believe that this wouldn’t be considered black-hat or at least very Spammy in which case a client could be in trouble. On this vendor’s site I notice that they stack the footer site map with about 50 links that are basically keywords they are trying to rank for. But here’s the kicker shown by way of example from one of the themes in the footer: 9 footer links:
                        Top PR Firms
                        Best PR Firms
                        Leading PR Firms
                        CyberSecurity PR Firms
                        Cyber Security PR Firms
                        Technology PR Firms
                        PR Firm
                        Government PR Firms
                        Public Sector PR Firms Each link goes to a unique URL that is basically a knock-off of the homepage with a few words or at the most one sentences swapped out to include this footer link keyword phrase, sometimes there is a different title attribute but generally they are a close match to each other. The canonical for each page links back to itself. I simply can’t believe Google doesn’t consider this Spammy. Interested in your view.
                        Rosemary

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | RosemaryB
                        0
                      • Lisa-Devins

                        Do I lose link juice if I have a https site and someone links to me using http instead?

                        We have recently launched a https site which is getting some organic links some of which are using https and some are using http. Am I losing link juice on the ones linked using http even though I am redirecting or does Google view them the same way? As most people still use http naturally will it look strange to google if I contact anyone who has given us a link and ask them to change to https?

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Lisa-Devins
                        0
                      • David-Kley

                        Should You Link Back from Client's Website?

                        We had a discussion in the office today, about if it can help or hurt you to link back to your site from one that you optimize, host, or manage. A few ideas that were mentioned: HURT:
                        1. The website is not directly related to your niche, therefore Google will treat it as a link exchange or spammy link.
                        2. Links back to you are often not surrounded by related text about your services, and looks out of place to users and Search Engines. HELP:
                        1. On good (higher PR, reputable domain) domains, a link back can add authority, even if the site is not directly related to your services.
                        2. Allows high ranking sites to show users who the provider is, potentially creating a new client, and a followed incoming link on anchor text you can choose. So, what do you think? Test results would be appreciated, as we are trying to get real data. Benefits and cons if you have an opinion.

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | David-Kley
                        2
                      • NurunMTL

                        Hiding content or links in responsive design

                        Hi, I found a lot of information about responsive design and SEO, mostly theories no real experiment and I'd like to find a clear answer if someone tested that. Google says: 
                        Sites that use responsive web design, i.e. sites that serve all devices on the same set of URLs, with each URL serving the same HTML to all devices and using just CSS to change how the page is rendered on the device
                        https://developers.google.com/webmasters/smartphone-sites/details For usability reasons sometimes you need to hide content or links completely (not accessible at all by the visitor) on your page for small resolutions (mobile) using CSS ("visibility:hidden" or "display:none") Is this counted as hidden content and could penalize your site or not? What do you guys do when you create responsive design websites? Thanks! GaB

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | NurunMTL
                        0
                      • LeverSEO

                        Footer Link in International Parent Company Websites Causing Penalty?

                        Still waiting to look at the analytics for the timeframe, but we do know that the top keyword dropped on or about April 23, 2012 from the #1 ranking in Google - something they had held for years, and traffic dropped over 15% that month and further slips since. Just looked at Google Webmaster Tools and see over 2.3MM backlinks from "sister" compainies from their footers.  One has over 700,000, the rest about 50,000 on average and all going to the home page, and all using the same anchor text, which is both a branded keyword, as well as a generic keyword, the same one they ranked #1 for. They are all "nofollows" but we are trying to confirm if the nofollow was before or after they got hit, but regardless, Google has found them. To also add, most of sites are from their international sites, so .de, .pl, .es, .nl and other Eurpean country extensions. Of course based on this, I would assume the footer links and timing, was result of the Penguin update and spam. The one issue, is that the other US "sister" companies listed in the same footer, did not see a drop, in fact some had increase traffic.  And one of them has the same issue with the brand name, where it is both a brand name and a generic keyword.  The only note that I will make about any of the other domains is that they do not drive the traffic this one used to. There is at least a 100,000+ visitor difference among the main site, and this additional sister sites also listed in the footer. I think I'm on the right track with the footer links, even though the other sites that have the same footer links do not seem to be suffering as much, but wanted to see if anyone else had a different opinion or theory. Thanks!
                        Jen Davis

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | LeverSEO
                        0
                      • BobGW

                        Niche Directories

                        Hello, I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice. DMOZ and Best of the Web fall into that category. And so do some niche directories. How do you determine whether to go with a niche directory or not? Also, what's the ratio of how many niche directory links you'd want compared to other types of links (being very safe) 3:1? 4:1? 5:1? Does it matter what your other links are? Thanks.

                        White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW
                        1

                      Get started with Moz Pro!

                      Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                      Start my free trial
                      Products
                      • Moz Pro
                      • Moz Local
                      • Moz API
                      • Moz Data
                      • STAT
                      • Product Updates
                      Moz Solutions
                      • SMB Solutions
                      • Agency Solutions
                      • Enterprise Solutions
                      Free SEO Tools
                      • Domain Authority Checker
                      • Link Explorer
                      • Keyword Explorer
                      • Competitive Research
                      • Brand Authority Checker
                      • MozBar Extension
                      • MozCast
                      Resources
                      • Blog
                      • SEO Learning Center
                      • Help Hub
                      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                      • How-to Guides
                      • Moz Academy
                      • API Docs
                      About Moz
                      • About
                      • Team
                      • Careers
                      • Contact
                      Why Moz
                      • Case Studies
                      • Testimonials
                      Get Involved
                      • Become an Affiliate
                      • MozCon
                      • Webinars
                      • Practical Marketer Series
                      • MozPod
                      Connect with us

                      Contact the Help team

                      Join our newsletter
                      Moz logo
                      © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                      • Accessibility
                      • Terms of Use
                      • Privacy

                      Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.