Directories
-
Hi All,
Some saying getting listed in hundreds of directories has no real SEO benefit. Some saying opposite. Some saying there are only one directory to concerned with, the Yahoo Directory.
What are your opinions on this question after all Google's Pandas and Penguins ?
Thank you
-
Hi Webdeal. http://addurl.nu/ has an up to date list of quality website directories. I hope this helps!
-
I think Dana did a perfect justice to that answers, All I wanted to add here is that when finalizing the list of directories always consider niche instead of the general directories.
-
There are definitely more directories, in addition to Yahoo, that are still very worthwhile. I think the key is...balance. If the only links your site has are from directories, then they aren't going to be as valued. if you have a good balance of inbound links from directories of other sites, then you're okay.
Here's my "fast and dirty" list of things to check before you decide to get listed in a directory:
- How old is the directory? Older is better
- What's the PageRank of the Directory? Higher is better, above 3 is better, below that forget about it.
- What is the cache date of the directory? (more than 2 weeks, forget about it)
- Does the directory have a "free" inclusion option? Great! That's a good thing.
- How many inbound links does the directory have (use OSE), more is better
- What's the Alexa rank of the directory? Lower is better
- What country is the directory based in? Some are better than others. I'll let you make that call
I recently updated an excellent list of 100 reputable Web Directories just a few days ago. You can view it here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2012/03/high-pagerank-web-directory-listings.html!
I hope this helps!
Dana
-
There are definitely more directories, in addition to Yahoo, that are still very worthwhile. I think the key is...balance. If the only links your site has are from directories, then they aren't going to be as valued. if you have a good balance of inbound links from directories of other sites, then you're okay.
Here's my "fast and dirty" list of things to check before you decide to get listed in a directory:
- How old is the directory? Older is better
- What's the PageRank of the Directory? Higher is better, above 3 is better, below that forget about it.
- What is the cache date of the directory? (more than 2 weeks, forget about it)
- Does the directory have a "free" inclusion option? Great! That's a good thing.
- How many inbound links does the directory have (use OSE), more is better
- What's the Alexa rank of the directory? Lower is better
- What country is the directory based in? Some are better than others. I'll let you make that call
I recently updated an excellent list of 100 reputable Web Directories just a few days ago. You can view it here: http://www.danatanseo.com/2012/03/high-pagerank-web-directory-listings.html!
I hope this helps!
Dana
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 are best page titles for sub-folders or sub-directories? Same as website?
Hi all, We always mention "brand & keyword" in every page title along with topic in the website, like "Topic | vertigo tiles". Let's say there is a sub-directory with hundreds of pages...what will be the best page title practice in mentioning "brand & keyword" across all pages of sub-directory to benefit in-terms if SEO? Can we add "vertigo tiles" to all pages of sub-directory? Or we must not give same phrase? Thanks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | vtmoz0 -
How do I get the sub-domain traffic to count as sub-directory traffic without moving off of WordPress?
I want as much traffic as possible to my main site, but right now my blog lives on a blog.brand.com URL rather than brand.com/blog. What are some good solutions for getting that traffic to count as traffic to my main site if my blog is hosted on WordPress? Can I just create a sub-directory page and add a rel canonical to the blog post?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | johnnybgunn0 -
Directories that Redirect - Do They Pass Link Juice?
I did some searching before asking but could not quite find what I was looking for. There are valid directories out there that provide business as well as links that provide SEO value. My question is whether or not having a redirect in place negates passing any link juice. When I use Open Site Explorer for Old Monterey Inn, this directory (CABBI) does not show up on their list. However, their website dropped from Google Analytics altogether for some time because of an issue in how they built their site. Their "fix" is this redirect which was integrated a short time ago. I do see traffic in Google Analytics now but wonder about the link juice. Example: <a href="[/redirect?type=website&inn=34211&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldmontereyinn.com](view-source:https://www.cabbi.com/redirect?type=website&inn=34211&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.oldmontereyinn.com)" target="<a class="attribute-value">_blank</a>">www.oldmontereyinn.coma>p> What say you? Thanks to anyone that responds.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ColoradoMarketingTeam0 -
Block subdomain directory in robots.txt
Instead of block an entire sub-domain (fr.sitegeek.com) with robots.txt, we like to block one directory (fr.sitegeek.com/blog).
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gamesecure
'fr.sitegeek.com/blog' and 'wwww.sitegeek.com/blog' contain the same articles in one language only labels are changed for 'fr' version and we suppose that duplicate content cause problem for SEO. We would like to crawl and index 'www.sitegee.com/blog' articles not 'fr.sitegeek.com/blog'. so, suggest us how to block single sub-domain directory (fr.sitegeek.com/blog) with robot.txt? This is only for blog directory of 'fr' version even all other directories or pages would be crawled and indexed for 'fr' version. Thanks,
Rajiv0 -
When you add 10.000 pages that have no real intention to rank in the SERP, should you: "follow,noindex" or disallow the whole directory through robots? What is your opinion?
I just want a second opinion 🙂 The customer don't want to loose any internal linkvalue by vaporizing link value though a big amount of internal links. What would you do?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Zanox0 -
On-Site Directory - Delete or Keep?
We have 2 ecommerce sites. Both have been hit by Penguin (no warnings in WMT) and we're in the process of cleaning up backlinks. We have link directories on both sites. They've got links that are relevant to the sites but also links that aren't relevant. And they're big directories - we're talking thousands of links to other sites. What's the best approach here? Do we leave it alone, delete the whole thing, or manually review and keep highly relevant links but get rid of the rest?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingof50 -
Directory backlink
Hello everyone, I know that this question has been asked millions of time, but I am really not getting a straight answer for it. Well the question will be divided in few other questions : Google changed, I get that, but I am reading everywhere, come up with a great content and the rest will follow, stop creating your own backlink and let user link to you ... But I don't know if this is apply for every site on the web, let take the example of a flash gaming site that we manage, we are creating games every day, coming up with great (unique) text for each of them, we are active on social media and stopped backlink from directories. But now we can see our sites losing ranking and seeing some websites that are not having much content on their sites or even active on social medias that are ranking better than us. We always used white hat techniques, this is why we were so well ranked for so long, but now we see our ranking change on a daily basis but can't explained why. So my question is, should we totally stop directories backlink (even the good directories)? Or we should keep on going and try PR at the same time? For a site that just started how on earth will he be able to get backlinks if it's not using directories in the first place? So I feel that I am going in circle here and I don't know what else we could do to improve our site. We even recast the site to bring better experience to the user to see if this will help on us on getting our ranking back. And this help, as the page views and time on the site improved with it, but the ranking is still unchanged (that has been done 3 months ago). Just to let you know we are aware about the panda and penguin updates 🙂 Thanks for your help on this, and I hope the answers will help others 🙂 Thanks, Mounir
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | drimlike0 -
.htaccess - error404 redirect within a directory?
Hi, One of my clients has a CMS website offering Health and Safety training. When the courses have been run they automatically drop off of the system which is great for the front-end of the site but this leaves pile 404 errors for the URLs. I am trying to put a .htaccess redirect in place that will redirect back to the main category for that course i/e : http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA/27-nrswa-operative-sept-11.html will redirect to http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA I have spent a looooong time hitting google for a solution but can't seem to come up with anything. If at all possible I would also like to be able to post a php variable via the redirect url so that I can display a message on the category page saying that the course is no longer available be please select a different course. i/e: http://www.domain.co.uk/courses/highways/6-NRSWA?course=not-available Any help on this would be most gratefully received.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdeLewis0