Links from Directories
-
We are currently listed in a number of Association Buyer's Guides. We signed up for these last year in an effort to increase our external links. With recent Panda changes, do these links carry any value for us? Here are some examples:
http://buyersguideforeducators.com/
http://wasteindustrymarketplace.com/
We're in about 40-50 of these different directories.
Thanks,
Ben
-
The example directories you have given look pretty spammy to me. They all have the same design and look to have been made to make money rather than service a need. In the print world they would be the crap newspapers put through people's doors, left in supermarkets / shopping centres.
My advice would be to try to avoid these. Look for directories that provide a benefit to users and look to have unique content i.e. specific to niche or region.
-
Sorry for the blatant plug!
Would you believe it............I actually run a directory (www.semi-directory.com) that you might actually want ti be listed in (assuming you operate in the semiconductor / cleanroom industry).
Since the site was built by me (in Glasgow no less!), I specifically built it with SEO in mind. It is def no spammy as every new company listing is manually vetted. Get in touch if you want to know more and I can even show you some tricks to get more out of your free listing too.
-
For some niche keywords, link directories can work and have a positive effect, but you'd be best to avoid anything that seems spammy or thrown together.
The examples you've given are all suffering from the problem of having an excessive number of external links from a small number of domains. For example one has 30k links from just 22 domains. That suggests something fishy to me and probably would to Google.
You can use the seomoz toolbar to get some useful metrics on directories before you submit your site. As Wayne has said, also try and make sure the directories are relevant.
Another useful check is to check the pagerank for the directory. If it's a lot lower than the MozRank (as in seomoz toolbar) then you may deduce that the directory has suffered a penalty and you may be wise not to put your link there.
-
Hi Ben,
Some people will tell you that directories are not worth your time. I don't find that to be true in every instance. I think that listing yourself in a few of these industry-related directories (the most valuable and non-spammy ones) can not only yield minor influence in the engines, but more importantly it can serve as a great source for referrals, especially when it's in your niche market.
That said, if you're going to concern yourself with paid directories, I would make sure that you are listed in those like Yahoo and Best of the Web. I've seen positive influence from both of these directories, and they are trsuted by Google.
In whole, directories are not going to elevate your SEO campaign too terribly much.
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
-
Anchor Test (do follow link)
Hi, I am new to SEO, may I know how many anchor text with a do-follow link I should aim for a 500-1000 words guest post? also, what is the percentage of different type of anchor text per post, e.g. ( 20% Branded, 20% Exact-match, 20% Naked link and more? I know that quality is more important, but is there any magic number and the percentage I should really aim for? Kind regards CHRIS
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | KINSHUN0 -
Should we optimise our internal links?
Hi again, We recently had a technical search audit done by a specialist agency and they discovered a number of internal links that caused redirects to happen. The agency has recommended we update all of these links to link directly to the destination so we don't lose out on link equity. We'd just like to know if you think this would be a worthwhile use of our time. Our web team seem to think that returning a 301 to a crawler means that the crawler will stop indexing the original URL and instead index the redirected destination? Thanks all. Clair
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | iescape2 -
Should I have as few internal links as possible?
On most pages of my site i have a Quick Links section, which gives x3 cross sales links to other products, a newsletter sign up link, link to Blog, x4 links from images to surveys, newsletters, feedback etc. Will these links be hurting my optimal SEO juice between pages, should the number of internal links be kept to a minimum? My site is www.over50choices.co.uk if that helps. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep1
Ash0 -
Dummy links in posts
Hi, Dummy links in posts. We use 100's of sample/example lnks as below http://<domain name></domain name> http://localhost http://192.168.1.1 http:/some site name as example which is not available/sample.html many more is there any tag we can use to show its a sample and not a link and while we scan pages to find broken links they are skipped and not reported as 404 etc? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mtthompsons0 -
Links from new sites with no link juice
Hi Guys, Do backlinks from a bunch of new sites pass any value to our site? I've heard a lot from some "SEO experts" say that it is an effective link building strategy to build a bunch of new sites and link them to our main site. I highly doubt that... To me, a new site is a new site, which means it won't have any backlinks in the beginning (most likely), so a backlink from this site won't pass too much link juice. Right? In my humble opinion this is not a good strategy any more...if you build new sites for the sake of getting links. This is just wrong. But, if you do have some unique content and you want to share with others on that particular topic, then you can definitely create a blog and write content and start getting links. And over time, the domain authority will increase, then a backlink from this site will become more valuable? I am not a SEO expert myself, so I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | witmartmarketing0 -
Free Directories - Yes or No?
Clearly, we see that high authority directories like Dmoz.Org are effective, even if this big monster is practically dead because of how unresponsive it is. What about other free directories? Is it worth obtaining as many listings as possible in the free directories? what about the paid ones? Is this still good SEO strategy if the directories have at least a PR3-4 or many cases higher? I'm asking this for an established site, so I understand that it won't help for deep-linking and anchor text, but will it help anyway to get links from these? If you like this post, help me out by giving me a Big Thumbs Up!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | applesofgold0 -
Indirect SEO boost from links
I have 2 ecommerce sites, each with a blog. I am increasing my linkbuilding efforts, but I don't want to build too many links directly to my 2 sites over a short period of time. I have decided that I will add a certain number of links to sites/pages that are already linking to my main sites (for example, a blog post on my blog, guest post on another blog, article submission, etc.). How much of a benefit can I expect in terms of rankings? Has anyone tested this out or experimented with something like this? What are the pros and cons? I appreciate thoughtful comments.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | inhouseseo0 -
Can I reduce number of on page links by just adding "no follow" tags to duplicate links
Our site works on templates and we essentially have a link pointing to the same place 3 times on most pages. The links are images not text. We are over 100 links on our on page attributes, and ranking fairly well for key SERPS our core pages are optimized for. I am thinking I should engage in some on-page link juice sculpting and add some "no follow" tags to 2 of the 3 repeated links. Although that being said the Moz's on page optimizer is not saying I have link cannibalization. Any thoughts guys? Hope this scenario makes sense.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | robertrRSwalters0