High domain authority for shady link directories
-
Hi there,
First of, I'm new to the moz community and I love it already! So much to learn and to do for getting better and better at SEO. Really helpful!
Okay, my question. If I analyze (top 5) sites with the open site explorer some of them have a link profile consisting just of link directories. How come they rank so high with just link directories backing them up?
The directories often are just ongoing lists of links without any form of content. But the authorities of the directories (page and domain) are often between 40-60 or even above! How come they get such high authority? And do I have to use them for my linking profile or will it hurt me?
On moz I learned not to use those directories because it's quality > quantity these days. But it almost seems as if this is not true because only half of the top positions in my keyword-market actually make use of more then just link directories.
I must say that I operate in the Dutch markets so maybe different rules apply in the Netherlands?
Thanks in advance and kind regards,
Luuk van Dongen
-
Great to know! Thanks Dr. Pete
-
It's important to keep in mind that DA and PA are measures of the strength of a link profile and, to some degree, a site's/page's raw ranking ability. Our authority metrics don't have built in spam-detection, though, and they aren't always aware of sites that Google may have devalued. Spam analysis has been in the works for quite a while now, and it's a complicated problem (as Google has proven). We're hoping to improve DA/PA in this regard over time, but for now there are going to be some situations where a site doesn't really have the ranking power that it's DA suggests. If your gut feeling is that the bulk of the site's links come from bad directories and low-quality sources, you may very well be correct.
-
You also have to consider whether the company has disavowed these directories. If the website has had SEO done on it for many years then there is a good chance that directories formed a major part of their strategy, however, with the disavow tool in play now, those directories may well have been disavowed recently and they will still show up on their linking profile in OSE. Just a thought for you to consider.
It is true that some local and niche directories are still beneficial even in today's SEO market so don't discount a directory straight away without looking into it further.
-
No by content rich links I mean links from good informative sites/blogs instead of sites with no content or little articles about a strange variety of topics that don't relate to each other.
I will try using majestic SEO and Ahrefs. Thanks for the help!
-
That may be so. The way you say "content rich links" comes out sounding like "spammy back links" and Moz does try to keep its crawl focused on higher quality links. Again, as Matt said, Ahrefs and Majestic are good additional sources for back link research.
-
So actually you're saying that possibly only the really good link directories are indexed my moz and the more content-rich links are not shown in the open site explorer? If so, do you have any idea how to retrieve those other links?
-
In addition to what Matt said, some directories are very good resources for links and some niches have more than a few well curated directories that are worthwhile. Don't dispel all directories straight off.
-
One thing to remember is that Moz only catalogs a VERY small portion of links pointing to a site (compare to Ahrefs or Majestic and THEY only catalog a small portion of the internet.)
So you may be looking at 5-10% of a site's actual profile. It's hard to say what else they have, what is really ranking a site, etc.
http://www.matthewwoodward.co.uk/experiments/backlink-checker-tools/
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
-
Internal Links Not Registering
Hey everybody. In Moz when I compare link profiles to my competitors my domain is showing up as only having 4 internal follow links, and 0 nofollow. I know for a fact this is not the case however it is disconcerting. Is there any reason why Moz wouldn't be able to pick up my internal links? Is there a difference when linking internally by "/page_a" vs actually spelling out the entire URL i.e. "https://www.mysite.com/page_a"
International SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
Link juice on sub domains
We have got all our clients linking to our website blackpen.tv Based on a user's location they will be redirected to a sub domain. So for example someone in France clicking on a link blackpen.tv would be redirected to paris.blackpen.tv or blackpen.tv/paris Would this affect the amount of link juice passed down?
International SEO | | roberthseo0 -
Help with .asia domain extension
hi there i m planning to buy a domain with .asia extension. I want to know ....values of these tlds regarding seo.did i chose wrong tlds?? purely targeting emd traffic. One of my site with .biz for a emd in "biz op" ranked less than 2 weeks ..now i have 200-300 traffic daily. i asked here because of i have no experience with .asia extension. 1.can i target the audience demographically with these .asia for u.s. , u.k .or brazil. 2. these extension can be good for seo ? can i ranked high in serp for low ocmpetition terms any suggestion or idea & tips for me??? thanks in advances.
International SEO | | ranktrack0 -
Same domain with different google effect seo ?
I have a domain www.abc.com for US market. Now i want to sell same services in Australia. I am thinking to buy www.abc.com.au . Because i think i will get rank more faster for .au in Australia because of .au . What do you guys suggest ?
International SEO | | afycon0 -
Change domain from .es to .com
Hi all, we have a website with 2 domains name to point to it: -hacerfamilia.es -hacerfamilia.com We used to take .es like the default domain, so the .com redirected to the .es with a 301 header. But now we decided to change to .com because it is more international. So default domain would be .com. We made a multiple redirect to .es to .com with a simple htaccess rule, with a 301 header. The hosting it is the same, and the address too, for the two domains. Should we take any other steps? Thank you.
International SEO | | seoseoseos0 -
How long does it take for google to realize there is a new language sub domain?
I have a global client who just launched new sub domains of their site in new languages (Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Japanese). Example: es.client.com pt.client.com ru.amdocs.com ja.amdocs.com How long does it take for Google to recognize these new subdomains? Would submitting an XML sitemap be helpful? If so how long can we see them pick up the site? What is the best way to check that your new subdomains are showing in each countries SERPs? Thanks for your help!
International SEO | | Scratch_MM0 -
Best domain for spanish language site targeting ALL spanish territories?
hi, we're have a strong .com domain and are looking to launch a site for spanish speakers (ie latin america + spain). we already have various subdirectories for some foreign language sites (eg. ourdomain.co.uk, us.ourdomain.com, ca.ourdomain.com, ourdomainchina.com, ourdomainindia.com etc) we already have a B2B site ourdomain.com-es which will remain the same. I'm thinking best practice would be to launch translated copy for the following: ourdomain.com/es ourdomain.com/cl ourdomain.com/mx ourdomain.com/pt etc etc firstly is this the best option? secondly, i'm really interested to hear whether there is a less time/resource intensive route that would give us visibility in ALL spanish speaking territories? Also - if we go with just one of the above (eg ourdomain.com/cl) how likely are we to get traction in other spanish speaking territories? any help much appreciated!
International SEO | | KevinDunne0 -
Geo-targeting a sub-folder that's had url's rewritten from a sub-domain
I have a client that's setting up a section of his site in a different language, and we're planning to geo-target those pages to that country. I have suggested a sub-folder solution as it's the most cost effective solution, and it will allow domain authority to flow into those pages. His developer is indicating that they can only set this up as a sub-domain, for technical reasons, but they're suggesting they can rewrite the url's to appear as sub folder pages. I'm wondering how this will work in terms of geo-targeting in Google Webmaster Tools. Do I geo-target the sub domain or the sub folder i.e. does Google only see urls or does it physically see those pages on the sub-domain? It seems like it might be a messy solution. Would it be a better idea just to forget about the rewrites and live with the site being a sub domain? Thanks,
International SEO | | Leighm0