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.
Paid Directory - Whitehat or Blackhat?
-
Dear community,
Just a quick question:
Would you consider a directory as this one whitehat or blackhat SEO? http://mixyellowpages.com/cncat_add.php
You can add link to 50 web directories.
- No reciprocal link.
- 100% approved within 48 hours.
- Do follow link.
- Get one way link from quality sites.
- Pay only $ 15 No monthly fee.
Our SEO-agency is using these kinds of directories, so I just wanted to make sure, that this is a) Whitehat-SEO and b) will not harm our rankings.
Thanks,
David -
Hi David,
Directories are a difficult one. The recent Penguin updates (and to some degree, Panda) have pretty much destroyed the generic directories. However, the benefits of local directories and citations are still there! (http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/The-Ultimate-List-50-Local-Business-Directories.aspx)
With regards to the particular directory that you're querying. The quality is low, even for directory standards. You're probably doing more harm than good by mass submitting to 50 directories that are linking out to all sorts of drop-shipping / foreign / low quality sites.
Matt Cutts also made a video explaining how Google treats Paid Directories. There are a few good directories that request a review fee that may be worth it - BOTW, Business.com, Yahoo, but the rest are just paid links.
What your agency are doing isn't the darkest of black-hat SEO, but it's definitely low quality, lazy and against Google guidelines. 50 directories probably won't harm your site. However if the majority of your backlink profile is made up of directories, it definitely won't be doing your site any favours.
tl;dr
- Local Directories - Good
- Genuine Review Fee Based Directories - Possible Benefits
- Mass Submissions / Paid Directories - Bad
If you'd like to read more, I wrote a post about my thoughts on directories back in September that I feel still rings true!
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
-
Paid-for featured article on dailymail.co.uk with follow links
Hey Mozzers, Our PR team are paying for a featured article on dailymail.co.uk to increase brand visibility and coverage on a high traffic website. The article, however, is fairly thin content, and it has a couple of follow links back to our own site. From an SEO point of view, how do you feel about this?
Link Building | | RWesley0 -
Directory Listings no longer counted in Backlinks?
Interesting situation when I looked at Google Search Console this morning, I found that back-links from directories had dropped off and am wondering if anyone else is seeing this? Specifically, I am in Australia and had links from Yellowpages.com.au and Truelocal.com.au to my primary domain. Interestingly, Yellow Pages had gone a bit crazy recently in that the number of links to my site seemed to balloon exponentially from about 50 when I first listed to 700+ to 1500+ to 1800+ and then the balloon popped. Truelocal in contrast was only ever showing the 1 link. There have not been any changes from my end, and I only ever had one listing in these directories so not sure what generated all these extra links in Yellow Pages. Anyone else in Australia noticed a sudden drop off in Google Backlinks from Directories? If not it may just be a temporary blip.
Link Building | | Excal0 -
Directory Submission
Is it worth of submitting our company website in directories mentioned on http://www.directorycritic.com/free-directory-list.html?sort=pr&pg=
Link Building | | Obbserv0 -
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 | | mamuti0 -
What are the best RSS feed directories
Other than technorati and alltop what are the best RSS directories to use and submit feeds to?
Link Building | | PeterAlexLeigh0 -
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 | | PropelMike0 -
Which Directory Sites to Choose?
Hi All I am a newbie to SEO and have a quick Q. Assuming that appropriate steps would be to; a) Ensure all onsite matters are are correct, title tags, meta descriptions, redirects, canonical issues. b) Submit to Directories c) Build Links I am approaching step b) Which Directories are worth submitting to? For those which require payment, how can I decide which are value for money or should I just use SEOMOZ list of links and assume that theyre worth the $50 - $100 if my higher ranking competitors have links from these directories. Also, can this be looked opon as grey/black hat 'buying of links'? Thank you Sean www.pretavoir.co.uk
Link Building | | seanmccauley0 -
Is this Directory Guide by SEOmoz still accurate?
I need to pay for some directories, but I don't know if BOTW, Business.com, Joe Ant and others are still worth it. Anybody know if this is still viable? http://www.seomoz.org/directories All Mozzers, can you please give me a 'thumbs up' so I can get more MozPoints? 🙂
Link Building | | Francisco_Meza19