Directory subission post penguin
-
Does anyone have thoughts on doing mass directory submissions post penguin?
I know the value of the links are pretty worthless I am considering a submission service for nothing more than to get my number of different c-blocks up
Will directories be looked upon as link networks?
Is worth it?
-
Thanks dohertyf. I do get your point, but this isn’t the site I’m talking about and I have never had any warnings for this site.
The site that I am referring to does have a few crappy directory links pointing at it from years back and certainly nowhere near the amount I see pointing back to competing sites. And if these links were a problem why didn’t I get the notice earlier? It seems a big coincidence that I got the warning immediately after I submitted to these new directories.
-
Hey Shauny -
I'm not seeing those directory links you're talking about in either OSE or Majestic. What I do see, though, is these links which appear to be from a link network (since all the links are the same) -
http://www.directorio.internet.com.pe/Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley http://www.smart-dir.com/dir/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley http://www.gosearchfor.com/directory/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley
I'd go and remove those links, if your rankings dropped.
In my opinion, right now directories are too risky for my clients and my own sites. The only ones that I would do are BetterBusinessBureau (in the US), DMOZ, and Yahoo directory. Other than that, I steer clear of them and have moved my clients away from them.
-
Directory Submission Update
I decided to give a few directories a go.
Here’s what happened:
1. I manually submitted my site to 25 directories
2. I chose from the list of directories on moz. All the directories I submitted to were pr2 – pr6 with good moz rank (I checked them all out individually).
3. I used variations of brand anchors and different descriptions for each listing
4. I used the paid option for all the directories for guaranteed/faster review
5. I spread the submissions out over 10 days from 24<sup>th</sup>aug up until 3<sup>rd</sup> sept
On the 7th of September I received a “notice of detected unnatural links” from G. all of my homepage keywords have dropped about 10 places but inner pages are still pretty much the same
Any thoughts on how I should move forwards?
-
When I look at the competitors that rank above me the on-page optimisation and content quality is just about the same as mine and in some cases I feel not as good.
When I look at their link profile I see pretty much the same good quality backlinks as my own the only difference is that they all seem to have in common (and I don’t) is lots of low quality directory links which is boosting the amount of c-blocks pointing to their sites
I know that articles, guest posts etc. (which I already do) will build the extra c-block links but my theory is get the crappy directory links just to increase the number of c-blocks pointing back to me?
-
A good point
-
While i posted something contrary a few minutes ago..MANUAL directory submission cannot hurt. However, I doubt it helps much these days.
At this time, we have many 1-5 ranked keywords, and have given up directory submission altogether on it.
Recommendation (that we are still trying to figure out..)Write articles, post blogs build a Tribe that follows you - its a new world! Forget the tricks.
-
Good answers here. I would also like to suggest spreading your directory submissions out over a period of time. This way you don't have a bunch of links pointing to your site - it will look unnatural.
Submissions to human edited, niche- or geographically-related directories is best practice.
-
I'd agree with Keven, there is nothing wrong with directory submissions as long as they are relevant and manually reviewed by an editor. Also look into local and niche directories that suit your site business.
The problems with directory submissions for me begin with mass submissions where the work is outsourced or automated - I cant see you getting any value from this.
There is a great list of decent directories right here on moz, with a guide.
-
I personally have no issue with directory submission. I have grave concerns about MASS submission and won't do it (some people do and don't seem to get 'hammered' by Google, but I'm not risking a short gain against long term pain if G ever gets its algo to match the rhetoric).
The only directories I list in are those that have a reasonable chance to actually bring traffic for my customers.
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
-
Written a great guest post for another site. Can I post it on my own blog too?
So I've written this beautiful guest post for a site who've quite frankly done a bad job of promoting it and I'm a little disappointed. So I'm thinking: a) I could send it around to some other publishers and see if they want it. What would be the duplicate content problems here if any? b) Why not just publish it on my own site and promote it to other blogs and the world in the normal way. c) Is this just wrong and if I say I'm going to write for someone then I write for them and if they make a mess of it that's my problem and I should be more selective about who I give my talents away to in the future. Thanks in advance. I am fairly new to outreach and all the internet searching on this topic is returning stuff about 'allowing other people to post guest blogs on your site' which is not helpful. Rank Brain eh? Supposed to be smart. But it's really not. 🙂
Link Building | | Smileworks_Liverpool0 -
Is it okay to post my blog posts to both an internal blog on our domain and an external blog?
We have a blog internally at kay-grant.com/blog and also created an external blog at ActiveRain.com Is it okay to post the same blog posts to both sites or should I have different content for each blog?
Link Building | | geoff81510 -
Best of the Web directory
Does http://botw.org/ (Best of the Web directory) have any SEO value these days? Would you recommend listing on there?
Link Building | | roberthseo0 -
BOTW, business.com, yahoo directory
I was wondering in this day and age, do you guys think its worth submitted to these directories anymore?
Link Building | | PeterM220 -
Should you guest post on a site with no quality links?
Suppose a site is related to your industry and has a relatively good domain authority of 49. However when you look at their link profile it is mostly directories and they don't seem to have any natural links from quality sites. Would you still take the link if they offered to publish your guest post?
Link Building | | ProjectLabs1 -
Guest Posting - What Are The Steps To Start Posing In Any Niche ?
Guest Posting - What Are Best Ways To Start In Any NIche ? How do I go about finding these type of oppty's -- manually, using seomoz tools, other tools etcc
Link Building | | helpwanted0 -
URL in signature of discussion forum post
I used to see URL's in the signature part of discussion forum posts covering various topics but it does not seem popular anymore. It seems like a good way to build links and I am wondering why it is not used. Suppose I ask a question about proper tooth brushing technique on the forum at "toothbrushingforum.com" and user "ToothBrushWizard" is nice enough to answer my question. I used to see signatures like this: Good luck,
Link Building | | superTallDan
ToothBrushWizard
www.ToothBrushWizard.com Is this considered poor taste or are these links discounted by the search engines? Is it best to keep an updated profile with your URL and hope that forum users click through to it?0 -
The ultimate top 10 directory list
Everyone loves a good list. If you could only submit your site to 10 directories which 10 would you choose and why?
Link Building | | IPIM0