Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • Case Studies
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • SEO Q&A

        Insights & discussions from an SEO community of 500,000+.

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • Case Studies

        Explore how Moz drives ROI with a proven track record of success.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Directory Submission

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Directory Submission

    Link Building
    6
    6
    6867
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Obbserv
      Obbserv last edited by

      Is it worth of submitting our company website in directories mentioned on http://www.directorycritic.com/free-directory-list.html?sort=pr&pg=

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • medhahostingpr
        medhahostingpr Subscriber last edited by

        NO

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Andy.Drinkwater
          Andy.Drinkwater last edited by

          Hi Ravi,

          As already echoed above, I would avoid these now. There is a bigger risk now than there was when that was first produced.

          Link-building (link acquisition)now needs to be focusing on having link-worth assets and sharing these with those who would be interested.

          I always use BuzzSumo as an example here, because you are able to see what is being shared in your niche, who shared it (great for outreach) and then even if it has lead to any backlinks. It's these sites that linked that you can also contact.

          I would suggest looking at great content that has been shared, and try and make something better. You would be surprised what can come from this.

          -Andy

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • PatrickDelehanty
            PatrickDelehanty last edited by

            Hi there

            For my vote, I say no.

            The best way to assess potential backlinks are to ask the following questions:

            • Does this link help my website?

            • Does it send quality traffic?

            • Is this link relevant to my website?

            • Would I trust this site (that's linking to me) if I landed on it?

            • Is the website or content in which I am being linked from topically relevant to my website?

            • If you check metrics - does anything about the metrics (domain authority, page authority,Majestic, SEMRush traffic/ranking data, etc) make me feel uneasy?

            • Are the links from directory templates? (example)

            • Inspect URLs with blatant spam words

            • Free

            • Porn

            • XXX

            • Submit

            • Directory

            • Paid

            • Links

            • URL

            • Sex

            • etc.

            • Check for multiple domains and URLs on the same IPs

            • This can usually show link farms or spam

            • Don't be quick to discount nofollow links - nofollow's do provide value, so as long as they pass your sniff test, don't remove them simply because of this tag

            If you have to question a link or if it's worth obtaining, it's probably not worth obtaining in the first link. It's hard to explain, but a good link is something you just know is valuable when you see it, or one that you know is relevant enough to your website and fits perfectly in the content that it's linking from.

            Directories like those you linked to here are only built for the reason of gaming the search engines and build mass amounts of links as quickly as possible. Google, and other search engines, understand this and are actively putting a stop to it and deranking sites with backlink profiles that contain fair amounts of these links.

            My vote - avoid them - and acquire links naturally, it will benefit you so much more in the long run.

            Hope this helps! Good luck!

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • ClaytonJ
              ClaytonJ last edited by

              No is the short answer.

              Below is a great article detailing the dangers of directories.

              https://moz.com/blog/web-directory-submission-danger

              If you want a great contemporary webinar on link building. This came out two days ago on the 18 June from the guys at page one power. I like to break up the reading with a  webinar every now and then!

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n39BPLmMiY4

              Hope this helps.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
              • T0BY
                T0BY last edited by

                Generally people seem to be avoiding directories as they can be spammy and thin on content. I have had problems with getting huge numbers of no follow links from them. I would say avoid.

                Toby

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Firestarter-SEO

                  Are directories still a valid practice? If so what are some of your favorite and most authoritative directories?

                  After combing over several competitor sites I have found many if not the majority of their links are from directories. I am curious to know if individuals/companies/seos etc. still use directories, if so what are some of the favorites?

                  Link Building | | Firestarter-SEO
                  1
                • RickyShockley

                  Paid Directory Links

                  To my surprise, I couldn't find a clear answer to the questions "Do paid directory links violate Google guidelines?" I know Matt Cutt's recently had a video on paid links, but it didn't really cover paid directory links. Are well-curated directory sites that charge for inclusion violate Google's guidelines? A good example would be the business.com directory.

                  Link Building | | RickyShockley
                  0
                • mamuti

                  Which one - Article Directories or Web 2.0 Sites ?

                  I have lots of unique article and ready for spreading but want to know which one is more effecting in SERP. Currently i am adding articles to Ezine and Hubpages, please let me know your suggestion ?

                  Link Building | | mamuti
                  0
                • Max_powers

                  Mass article submission

                  I'm quite new to SEO and initially I was learning from the wrong sources who suggested to submit content to as many article directories as possible and the same with website submission to other web directories. Most of the directories they had suggested were low quality, with the only quality ones being made for a niche, which was not my websites niche. They also recommended other bad on-page techniques such as spinning/scraping other websites content - not that I followed this method anyway. Anyway, after educating myself more on how SEO and the search engines themselves work, I know that this is not the best practice. My website initially benefited from having all of these links but now has dropped off ranking for the keyword entirely. It still ranks on the front page for other long tail keywords and the actual domain name, but not the primary keywords. I'm worried that Google has in some way blacklisted my website for the main keywords, which were also used in all of these articles, but not the others if that's possible. At the moment I'm restructuring my website by increasing the amount of content and especially the quality of content so that I can submit it to better directories such as DMOZ and other niche specific directories and websites. Will Google look past the links from the low quality directories if my website is included in DMOZ and other high quality, niche specific directories? Is it better to just abandon my current website and start fresh? Thanks for any answers and/or advice in advance.

                  Link Building | | Max_powers
                  0
                • kevinyu1029

                  What is the purpose of submitting your blog articles to directories?

                  I was wondering what the purpose of submitting your blog articles to directories are.  Doesn't it require enough "points" or "+1's" for it to become a "do-follow" link? People on the forum talk about automating directory submission, can anyone recommend a good software for this?  I've been hearing that Google Penalizes you for article submission because it looks like spam?

                  Link Building | | kevinyu1029
                  0
                • SamCUK

                  Link Directories - Good or bad?

                  I've just done a search on open site explorer for a competitors site that has is ranked number one. Most of their highest authority backlinks are from link directories. I just read an article on here saying to stay away from directories that state things like 'seo friendly directory'. Many of my competitors links are from these kind of sites! Will it harm me to get links from such sites? It seems to be working for my competitors.... confused.com!

                  Link Building | | SamCUK
                  0
                • vijayvasu

                  Web directories

                  is it any point anymore to build links from web directories. Does google consider web directories anymore? Thank you awesome Mozzers! Vijay

                  Link Building | | vijayvasu
                  0
                • PropelMike

                  How do paid directories like thomasnet.com do so well in the serps? Aren't the Panda updates supposed to be moving us away from this?

                  With all of the updates/changes to Google's algo, I assumed that paid listings & links like those on thomasnet.com would have less merit.  Is this an incorrect assumption?

                  Link Building | | PropelMike
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.