Thanks EGOL

Hi EGOL,

Thanks for the response. I've been reading a lot of articles and your responses to them lately.

From my understanding, natural anchor text's often should be something like my websites domain, instead of the same repeated anchor text of, for example, "monoclonal antibodies". I read this in another article on how to recognize if your back-links are coming off as spammy. I concluded from this that I can have my virtual assistant only submit to directories or social bookmark with anchor text such as my domain name instead of repeated keywords.

As far as creating great content  goes, it is a huge concern of mine. However, a large percentage of my clients come from the high-tech biotechnology and medical industry. Even though I have thorough academic training in high-tech sciences, it still is incredibly difficult to create great content because of just how in-depth the scope of something like biotechnology and stem cell research goes. It's something I've certainly been working on though.

Thanks for the contribution EGOL,

Sheldon

Thanks Irving,

I suspected directory submission sites are no longer relevant due to the reasons you listed. However, when I go on my competitors sites with OSE and look at their backlinks, I can still see a large number of them rank incredibly well on competitive keywords with poor directory links...?

This is what prompted my question in the first place because it seems that there still is value to it. The big question is at what point does it become detrimental?

Hey SEOmoz Community!

I've spent a bit of time now reading about SEO in books as well as online here within the SEOmoz community. However, I've still struggled to find a straight answer to whether or not directory submissions to non-penalized websites is acceptable.I suspect the reason I haven't found a straight YES or NO answer is because it isn't so straightforward and I respect that.

My dilemma is as follows: I want to raise the domain authority for a few websites that I optimize for. I've submitted and gotten listed a bunch of excellent backlinks, however it still is a painfully slow process. My clients understandably want to see results faster, and because they have virtually no past outsourced link-building campaigns, I am beginning to think that I can invest some money for outsourcing directory submissions.

I see more and more people talking about the latest Penguin updates, and how many of these sites are now penalized. BUT, is there any harm to submitting to directories such as the ones on SEOmoz's spreadsheet that aren't penalized? My concern is that in the future these will be penalized anyways, and is there a chance then that my site will also be de-listed from Google? At what point does Google completely 'blacklist' your site from its engine? Furthermore, I don't understand how Google can penalize a website to the point of de-listing it, because what would prevent other competitors from sending mass spammy back-links to another?

What it all comes down to: At this point, are verified mass directory submissions through outsourcing still much more beneficial than detrimental to the ranking of a website?

Thanks SEOmoz community,

Sheldon