Link DIrectories - Is it a Good Idea with recent Panda Updates
-
Yo!
I have been doing a tonn of research on a few of my top competitors and have noticed that a decent percentage of their links are from link directories. Most of these directories seem organized and the links on the pages are relevant to the selected category. These pages offer both free link submission and a paid feature link submission.
My question is that is it a good idea to submit my site to these directories with the recent Panda update(s). I have read a bit about it, but still do not fully grasp the overall picture of it.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
-
Hi guys, some good answers above, however in regards to Panda I do not believe link building is directly connected. Are links from Panda hit sites as valuable as they used to be? That is still being debated and I am yet to see any clear tests on it. Although commons sense tells me links from pages Google deems poor should have less value!
However you can read a little about it on question 3 here: http://www.sugarrae.com/link-development/link-building-with-the-experts-2011-edition/ (although it is worth reading the whole article!)
-
what happens if after your article what got a couple of links, you still dont rank...what then?
Then the article is probably not as good as it needed to be. It's then time to figure out where you missed.
-
Ask those who did link to the article what made it stand out to them.
-
Ask other experts on the same topic what information they would find helpful enough to cause them to want to link to an article.
-
Ask yourself "how can I improve?". Could you add images or videos or graphics? If you already have those items, can they be improved?
-
Can you add more details? Or perhaps summarize points better? Can you tie in to current events which would make the article more relevant to what's happening in the world today?
-
Is the article supported by experts? What evidence do you offer to support the article?
Look at a great SEOmoz article you may have linked to and measure the differences in quality and presentation.
Millions of articles are read every day. If you wrote a quality article, and I mean a truly great article, and others are not linking to it then either you need to publicize it more (tweets, etc.) or you picked a topic with such a narrow focus that it will take a lot of time to build links for it.
@Grotbos, there is no harm to submitting your site to FREE directories outside of the loss of time.
You are right that we have all seen sites boosted by these directories in the past. We have also seen many of those site owners in this Q&A site with the standard "Help! My site rankings dropped and I don't understand why" questions after their links have been devalued. Most directory links do not offer any value to users. SEs knows this and are adjusting accordingly.
-
-
Also @Ryan and techbattery. Techbatteries question regarding panda has also not been answered clearly. Could submitting a site to these directories have a detrimental effect due to the panda update from Google?
-
Hi Ryan
I agree with you 100%, but that is a bit easier said than done, even once you have written this great article to find people to link to it is the next challenge (A big one). And what happens if after your article what got a couple of links, you still dont rank...what then? I agree with your perception of directories 100%, but if google still values them (which in many cases it looks like it might), should we just neglect them all in all? We obviously do not want to prioritize directories over quality content, but the questions is does google still value those links? I would love to know this from someone who has run an experiment, as I do believe directories can sometimes be helpful to increase number of links and get good anchor texts. If someone could give me proof (besides the user argument) that directories don't help at all, I would appreciate it.
-
Link directories are a poor method of link building. Ask yourself, as a user, do you like link directories? Do you use any of the ones on the list? Do you know anyone who does? If the answer to all these questions is "no", then why would you want to spend time and money to be added to one of these directories?
Take all the time and effort and write the best article ever on a single topic. I notice your user name is techbattery so I will use a battery example. Write an article on cell phone or ipad batteries. Make the article relevant to anyone who owns one of those devices. "Best Ipad Battery for you" could be the title. Talk about different battery types, charge life, shelf life, can you overcharge them, why do they get so warm/hot, etc. Make it an article that everyone who owns an iPad will want to read. Let the world know about the article.
Ideally everyone who sells or owns an iPad will WANT to link to your article. The value you will get from that article will exceed anything you get from your link directory efforts.
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
-
Are these links helping
Hi, We have had a few new links for a client and we are hoping that we can get some feedback on whether these have any link juice. We dont want to waste our time with links that dont benefit the website. Thanks http://thebestmealplancateringbiz.strikingly.com/blog/diet-meal-plan-delivery-services http://mealplanguide.home.blog/2018/11/02/importance-of-diet-meal-plans/ https://besthealthymeals.tumblr.com/post/179669447854/benefits-of-diet-meal-planning https://lauraberbenaj2.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/healthy-diet-meals-delivery
Link Building | | Caffeine_Marketing0 -
Inbound link is follow link but we put no follow link back - is it beneficial for rankings?
Dear Moz Community, We are operating in a niche market, where there are not so many content marketing options. What we are left with are link exchanging with relevant sites that are on the same topic but to not directly compete with us. Now we know that if we link back to site A and site a links back to us - for google this is not a very good link. But, some of the sites we are exchanging links with, do not know the term follow vs no follow links. My question - if your link is to site A is a no follow link but they give us a follow link - does it mean thats a better option than a follow vs follow. Thanks for help!
Link Building | | advertisingcloud0 -
Link or Ad
I recently requested a link back from a site that is ranking 2nd for a term that i'm working on and they said they would gladly give me the link and remove my competitors but would also like me to have an ad on the same page for an annual fee that i could link to a landing page. I know that paying for links is no good and google can penalize you. so do i pay them and do a no follow to the landing page from the ad and call it a day? and how does google differentiate an ad from a link?
Link Building | | CHiP_RuN0 -
Link Directories
Hi there, We're very shortly launching a new website so as part of our link strategy we will be linking to directories found with the Link Acquisition Assistant for various keyword searches. I was wondering at what point is it not worthwhile submitting to these directories with regards PA and DA? For example if a directory has a domain authority of 69 but the page authority for the keyword in question is only 1, would it be a waste of time? Cheers
Link Building | | TalarMade0 -
Inbound links vs. internal links
Which scenario does more to help SEO - A) An inbound link from a low traffic/low page rank site to my site B) An internal link where one page of my site links to another page on my site
Link Building | | DVanSchepen0 -
Do image links with no alt tags pass link value?
"... an image link with no alt tag is useless to search engines..." according to a Nov 2007 seomoz blog post. Is this still the case in 2011? I ask because I'm about to obtain a banner link on a high-traffic site (chiefly for the clickthrough value) but I notice the site uses neither "title" nor "alt" tags.
Link Building | | Jeepster0 -
Do you think it's a good idea to try to find synergy between clients for blog posts/citations/links, or should you keep clients away from each other?
Say you have for example three (in this case) clients, and: Client A sells red widgets Client B is a doctor Client C sellls blue widgets With some research, you find that: Red widgets (A) can make the process of blue widget creation (C) even more effective. Red widgets (A) can protect you from harmful things that doctors (B) are qualified to recommend that you stay away from. Furthermore, there are things that doctors (B) recommend that you do in order to maximize the benefits of red widgets (A) Blue widgets (C) carry with them certain potential health risks, which according to doctors (B) can be minimized using the following means Sometimes blue widgets (C) can be used to effectively repair red widget (A) factories ...and so forth. Sure you're really writing these articles to generate links and exchange authority, and frankly you started with "how can I find synergy between these clients?" rather than a with a great article subject that needed a citation which luckily happened to be another client, but the citations are legitimate and the clients are qualified to speak on the subjects where their expertise and interests overlap. Would you consider going ahead with this? Does anyone have any experience doing it? I could see potential pitfalls if clients were to interact with each other, but keeping yourself as the intermediary might well work and overall it seems like a decent way to grab low-hanging fruit as they say. What do you guys think?
Link Building | | PathMarketing0 -
Yahoo Directory Link Question
Recently two of my clients purchased a listing in the Yahoo Directory, but they don't show up in the SEOmoz campaign analysis. Is there a reason why?
Link Building | | thriveseo0