Do links from a linkdirectory still matter
-
Hi everyone,
I'm checking out some competition for a webshop and i found a website which was quite high in Google for a searchterm, when checking it's backlinks why it was that high in google (His Content was rubbish, so it wasn't that).
I only found out that it has loads of linkdirectory links, does this mean it still matters these kind of links, or does it mean the competition is just rubbish?
Regards,
yannick
-
Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded the Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory updates and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices
-
I wish we had a vocabulary that could differentiate between the link farm type directories, and the high quality directories. We still use high quality directories, and we use this thought process. If the directory is one we would want the client to be found on, no matter what effect it might have on the sites ranking, and the other sites on the directory are decent quality, then of course we use it.
Local directories (if your client is a local type business) can be very strong. News media sites are great if they offer a directory style listing (with or without follow links).
So high quality directories that are there to serve the purpose of making it easier for viewers to find good quality sites, yes. Low link farm type directories that clearly exist for link purposes only- no.
This may not pan out to be a perfect SEO process ( Matt Cutts did say a link can not hurt you) but we feel long term it is a better and safer process ( Matt didn't say that a bad link profile couldn't hurt you).
-
Depending on the nature of the site (business, cause, informational site, etc), our linkbuilding strategies vary widely. Go for quality no matter what. If the directory is quality and established why not? I'd research directories even closer now that Google has their eyes out but they are still viable.
-
I would say that links from link-directories do still matter! It depends on the directory of course; good directories like dmoz certainly give a site some value whereas spammy directories can hurt your site. You can not say for sure - but a good way to find information on the directory is to see if it will rank for it's title or some copytext put into quotes and go from there. You might also want to check out to which other domains the page on directory links.
It's definitely a two edged sword but to put it short: they still matter.
-
Link directories will probably still matter, some. That value it provides is depending on which directory, how old the link is, the anchor text etc. They haven't matter very much ever though, and after Panda even less.
If you run the URL through SEOmoz' latest toy 'Keyword difficulty' (http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty) you should get a pretty complete picture of why this page is ranking for that term.
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
-
Best of the Web Still Prime Backlink Real Estate
Hello, I was doing competitive research and our top competitor has a clean backlink profile that includes the Best Of The Web directory. The top people on this Q&A used to recommend them and DMOZ for the only true good directory links. Is this still true or is Best Of The Web less important now? We only are listed in a small handful of directories, and not anything recent besides DMOZ. Thanks, Bob
Competitive Research | | BobGW2 -
Does link equity still count after an expired domain is purchased?
Hi guys, We've recently noticed a (very) minor competitor competing with us, as well as some of our industry's biggest names, in the Google SERPs - and the reason why has us absolutely stumped. Aside from an awful website from an aesthetic/UX point of view, their on-site content is horribly over-optimised, with keywords on the homepage even STRONG TAGGED for crying out loud! A backlink check using OSE and Ahrefs found 19 linking domains - most of which were just trash - but there were 5 that boasted some decent DA, the highest being 43. The thing is, these 5 sites are all very generic industry-relevant "blogs" that provide exceptionally poor quality content. The thing is, they have some very high quality backlinks (the BBC, the Guardian and CNN to name just three) acquired when the websites were something different entirely. The competitor has basically bought expired domains, turned them into basic websites related to our industry and linked them to their main domain. My question then is: is this competitor benefiting from the very high quality links that are pointing at sites that are then linked to their main domain? I found an article from 2009 that suggested old links stop counting after being purchased by someone else, but we are stumped as to why they could be otherwise. Thanks in advance everyone! John
Competitive Research | | NAHL-14300 -
Via this intermediate link?
I'm doing some work on an ecommerce site for an electronics distributor and I've been seeing these "Via this intermediate link" notations from GWT under our "Links To Your Site" section. I understand how and why these notations would normally be displayed, however, these links are mainly coming from our direct competitors. Fearing that we might be a victim of a negative SEO attack, I looked into the situation and noticed that all of the links are from PDF's (technical data sheets) provided by the manufacturer that both we and our competitors use on our product detail pages. This still seems odd to me because, we download these pdf's and host them on our own site on our own servers under a completely different name (as I'm assuming our competitors do as well), yet, there still seems to be a connection between our sites through these PDF's. I've included a screenshot of some examples. Since we have thousands of SKU's on our site - with technical PDF's for nearly all of them - we're seeing a lot of links from competitors sites. I'm not sure if this is good or bad, I'm just trying to understand the situation more clearly. Has anyone had any similar experiences or some information from Google that might explain what I'm seeing here? fpWvB5T
Competitive Research | | GalcoIndustrial0 -
Alternatives To Link Detective
Hi, A while back I used link detective to scan through our OSE reports. However, it seems that the site is no longer maintained and the system no longer seems to work, ie I upload the CSV file and then when i check back it leads to a blank screen. I wonder if anyone knows of a similar software as its functionality was very useful. Thanks
Competitive Research | | bobanna1 -
Help link building
Í am looking for a good company to help me on high cuality link building . Please can someone give any recommendations of good seo companies
Competitive Research | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Manta inbound link in OSE - competitor site yes, my site no, why?
Our site has had a link back to our site from Manta for a long time, but it's not appearing in our OSE results. One of our competitors similarly has an inbound link from Manta and that link DOES appear in their OSE results. I'm not certain whether that matters for us. Does it? But in any event, why would the one link appear but not the other? Thanks! Tim
Competitive Research | | tcolling0 -
Ive been busy link building for about 3 months and my seomoz account says i have no links?
Wondering why none of my links are showing in my dashboard altho many were accepted 3 months ago? many Thanks, Zoe.
Competitive Research | | zozzer0 -
Looking Up C-Block Links
I have been trying to find the tool that provides the campaign data the linking C-block data. Does anyone know which tool it is? Or is that just part of the campaigns?
Competitive Research | | purch0