Competitors and Directory Links
-
Hi guys, wanted to get some input and thoughts here. I'm analyzing many competitor links for a specific client (even other clients actually as well) and come across a pretty heavy directory backlink profiles.
has anyone here had success with directory listings? Seem many of the competitors backlinks are coming from directories.
What say you?
-
Hi Ryan.
Glad to hear someone talking sense! In researching sites' linking patterns I have also often come across sites that are linked to that should really have no logical relationship back to the site in question, yet the link still counts. Sometimes these are from blog sites that seo companies have set up themselves, that have little content, and not terribly interesting content either, yet this still seems to work in 2011, which is baffling.
I agree that one day this will all be devalued, but you wonder when.
-
@Doctone, you are absolutely correct. The results we see show directory links are a factor and work. I also see a lot of links from high DA/PA asian blogs and other sites providing followed links to sites and topics they have no logical relationship towards.
These type of links have existed for a long time, and do offer benefits to the sites on the receiving end.
With the above noted, it seems clear that if it is obvious to us, then they are also obvious to Google. It's only a matter of time until these links are penalized in the form of another Panda-type update. I would suggest not crossing the line and instead focusing on adding value to your users, adding better content users will want to naturally link to, and then you will be standing tall after your competitors get hit with the update that kills these links.
-
Hi there
I recently approached 6 different seo companies to give me a proposal to improve our rankings. Some were "cheaper", some were very expensive and well know here in the Uk. Guess what? They all still suggest adding directory links as part of a linking strategy, in fact one of them would have added 100 per month!
Looking at our competition I sadly have conclude that they are correct. We all hold google in high esteem and think it's extremely clever (and probably we're all probably a bit afraid of google, as none of us want to be penalised), but from my reasonably extensive own research using seo site explorer, I have to conclude that using directory links still really works, provided said directories are in good health, if you know what I mean, but you can easily tell by using a PR tool as well as the siteexplorer numbers.
-
With respect to blogs, you can use those comments along with forum posts for link value. However, you should check after the first time you use this method. Many blogs have their comments set up to automatically apply the nofollow attribute.
For link directories, I would recommend using the free directories. ODP is great but takes a very long time to get into. Many other directories wish to exchange links which isn't the best idea for many sites. The links shouldn't hurt but I would suggest not paying for a listing in the directory unless you have a high value site and the directory is of high value as well such as Yahoo's.
-
I think you're already on the right track. I use the Keyword Difficulty Tool and get a list of top ranking sites. Then I put those sites into Open Site Explorer and analyze their link profiles to get prospective link opportunities.
-
Good response guys, thanks
@ Dave: What research do you use to look into the directories? It seems most of these directories where you may submit one too may submit to many others. I've always stayed away from directories to make the link portfolio as organic as possible but coming across an incredible amount of backlink porfolios with directory links.
@Becampaz: Yes, I see blog comments do serve well in some of these backlink ports.
-
Directory Links most certainly still work. If you use this strategy make it a part of your overall link-building campaign but not the be all and end all. Also check the value and relevance of the directories as they may be subject to scrutiny by Google in the future. Good research here will serve you well. Make sure the page you're listing will potentially go on is strong and not loaded with other links as the power gets diluted with the number of links per page.
I like to call it building a diversified link portfolio using many tactics to guard against any major hiccups with a change in the algorithms of the Search Engines. Check out the webinars under the Learn SEO tab and the SEOMoz blog under the Community tab for great detailed info on tactics.
-
Well, lately all competitor sites that i have been looking seems to get the majority of their links from mainly two sources: Directories and Blog Comments.
They rank well (position 1 to 5) for medium (sometimes high) competitive keywords, so I would say that this works and is something easy to execute. However, this is not probably the best way to achieve an high authority for your site.
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
-
Disavowing Affiliate Links - Domain or Actual Affiliate Link?
Hi everyone, Hope you're all having a great day, I have a question in regards to a site which I am about to disavow. Over the past 2 months a certain page of ours has dropped from the 2nd page, all the way to the 7th. I haven't been able to diagnose why, however, yesterday I discovered that a site has been using an Lafitte link on his sidebar, the link is a do-follow. Webmaster tools indicates that this site has linked to us over 24,000 times. I understand that this link could potentially ruin our rankings - however, in terms of disavowing, what is the best approach here? Do I disavow their domain, or do I disavow the actual affiliate link also? The link is placed within an image, once the image is clicked it redirects you to another link for a second then redirects to our money site. We have got in touch with our affiliate program and they have made the link a no-follow, however, we are pretty certain this site is causing issues for us and we want to go ahead and disavow. Thanks, Brett
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Brett-S0 -
H3 Tags - Should I Link to my content Articles- ? And do I have to many H3 tags/ Links as it is ?
Hello All, On my ecommerce landing pages, I currently have links to my products as H3 Tags. I also have useful guides displayed on the page with links useful articles we have written (they currently go to my news section). I am wondering if I should put those article links as additional H3 tags as well for added seo benefit or do I have to many tags as it is ?. A link to my Landing Page I am talking about is - http://goo.gl/h838RW Screenshot of my h1-h6 tags - http://imgur.com/hLtX0n7 I enclose screenshot my guides and also of my H1-H6 tags. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. thanks Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PeteC120 -
Internal links question
I've read that Google frowns upon large numbers of internal links. We're building a site that helps users browse a list of shows via dozens of genres. If the genres are expose, say, as a pulldown menu as opposed to a list of static links, and selecting the pulldown option filters the list of shows, would those genres count against our internal links count?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TheaterMania0 -
Links from non-indexed pages
Whilst looking for link opportunities, I have noticed that the website has a few profiles from suppliers or accredited organisations. However, a search form is required to access these pages and when I type cache:"webpage.com" the page is showing up as non-indexed. These are good websites, not spammy directory sites, but is it worth trying to get Google to index the pages? If so, what is the best method to use?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | maxweb0 -
Disadvantages of linking to uncompressed images?
Images are compressed and resized to fit into an article, but each image in the article links to the original file - which in some cases is around 5Mb. The large versions of the images are indexed in Google. Does this decrease the website's crawl budget due to the time spent downloading the large files? Does link equity disappear through the image links? Either way I don't think it's a very good user experience if people click on the article images to see the large images - there's no reason for the images to be so large. Any other thoughts? Thanks. 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Alex-Harford0 -
Directory VS Article Directory
Which got hit harder in penguin update. I was looking at SEER Interactive backlink profile (the SEO company that didn't rank for it's main keyword phrases) and noticed a pretty big trend on why it might not rank for its domain name. SEER was in a majority of anchor text, many coming from directories. i'm guessing THEY were effected because they matched the exact match domain link profile rule I'm not an expert programmer, but if i was playing "Google Programmer" I would think the Algo update went something like. If ((exact match domain) & (certain % anchor text==domain) & (certain % of anchor text== partial domain + services/company)) { tank the rankings } So back to the question, do you think that this update had a lot to do with directories, article directories, or neither. Is article directories still a legit way to get links. (not ezine)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | imageworks-2612900 -
Content linking ?
If you have links on the left hand side of the website on the Navigation and content at the bottom of the page and link to the same page with different anchor text or the same would it help the page (as it is surrounded by similar text) or is the first one counted and this is it?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BobAnderson0 -
Linking Back
Hello, I have a blog www.digitaldiscovery.eu and I have been working the link building. Now I have a few links pointing into my blog and in Google Webmaster and in Open Site Explorer I can see the URL of those websites. In scale from 1 to 10 how usefull is to have a blogroll in my blog pointing back to those high PR links? How usefull is this in link-building strategy? Tks in advance! PP
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | PedroM0