A Straight Answer to Outsourcing Backlinking, Directory Submission and Social Bookmarking
-
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
-
Thanks EGOL
-
I understand the content creation problem. I have graduate degrees and decades of work experience in my topic area. Content creation still is a laborious undertaking.
In the biotech and medical areas your writer needs a strong background in the content area. Without that he/she will quickly be spotted as a noob by people who know their stuff. This is long, careful writing that most people don't want to do.
-
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
-
Anybody who says "yes" or "no" without further clarification is giving you a lazy answer.
Penguin problems can result from links on crap sites or links from great sites. If you place lots of links with optimized anchor text on a lot of great websites you could still have problems. Google knows by that artificial anchor text that you are trying to manipulate.
So, it is not only WHERE the links are placed but HOW the links are anchored that is important.
Honestly, the best way to get links is by publishing great content. If you can do that the links will arrive naturally with zero work from you. I do almost zero link building. The anchor text for most of my links is a domain name or a URL or simple words like "here" or "this website" or "this article".
-
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?
-
I'll give you a direct answer. No. Directory submission sites are no longer relevant due to search engines, and they are seen by Google as nothing more than sites designed to sell links and pass PR.
Smart link builders stopped this activity years ago. There are only a small handful of directory sites like yahoo that are worth submitting. 99% of them are not.
If you find a directory site that is in your niche and nofollows your link then it might make sense to get listed as a possible traffic driver.
It takes a lot to get your site removed from Google index, the easiest way is to be hacked then your site gets banned until you remove those links.
What would most likely happen with directory submissions is that the keywords you are targeting get suppressed in the rankings, you go from page one to page 50 for example and your traffic drops. Google emilas you a letter in WMT saying they detected unnatural link building and then you spend all sorts of time trying to get your links removed and disavowing and resubmitting for reconsideration.
Directory sites are dead, if you're going to do link building it needs to be one offs to individual sites who have never sold links, not on sites who's sole business is to sell links.
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
-
Strange backlinks
I'm a dentist and I keep getting my images turning up on pages where there are hundreds of images of dental procedures, linking out to dentists all over the world. It's not -ve SEO I don't think. There's just not enough of it to be that. The images are linking back to me with follow links (but worthless) and the pages are indexed with low to moderate 10-30 DA (that's old DA) and the new link explorer is showing them as worthless - so well done new link explorer! I'm not worried they are harming my site because I'm sure they're being ignored by google. But is there some evil black-hat scam going on that i'm not aware of? Should I disavow? I don't care that they're using our images. They are watermarked and they are linking back to us. I just don't understand the point of such a site either? Is it a precursor to something more malevolent or spammy? **So my question is - is this harmful or should I just let the crazy internet be crazy and not interfere? 🙂 ** I'm always wary of disavowing.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Smileworks_Liverpool0 -
Backlink Question
I have a backlink on a very popular sports news site PR5 this is a sitewide link. The link is near the top on righthand side. As you scroll down, the page keeps loading more and more information. According to my Google webmaster tools the link is on the site over 21,400 pages. As the stories being submitted are new most of the pages have no PR however there are around 30-40 categories that have PR ranging from 0-4. According to my AHREFS account on a daily basis it picks up between 100-200 new links with on average around 10-20 being lost as the stories are being removed. Would anyone advise I just ask for my link to be on the category pages only or should I leave it as it is? Many Thanks in Advance for any Feedback.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Palmbourne0 -
Huffingtonpost selling anchor text backlinks?
I found this article on huffingtonpost.co.uk http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/top-5-most-influential-ma_b_3682369.html In the 2nd paragraph it has the words "mannequin retail displays", linked to a site that sells mannequins. The link has nothing to do with the story and it seem ( to me a least) its been paid for. Looking at other old posts by the same author its does not seem to be a one off: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/celebrity-honeymoons_b_3962560.html
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | PaddyDisplays
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/cruise-holidays_b_3898661.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/five-of-the-worlds-most-important-rivers_b_3761599.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/john-maclachlan/the-top-4-manliest-jobs-in-the-world_b_3694431.html I'm just surprised that a site as big as the huffington post selling back links in this way0 -
Is this a 'real site' or a spam site for backlinks
I have been asked what type of site this is? What kind of page is this? [http://www.gotocostarica.com/](http://www.gotocostarica.com/) In my opinion it is site put up to create back links and should be avoided (especially in the light of the new Penguin and Panda updates coming). But I don't want to give wrong advice. What are your opinions?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Llanero0 -
Website Spam Backlinks Solution
I have been doing some back-link checking and found that 25% of the total back-links to my PR5 site are Spam and generated over the past 8 weeks. There are 189 links in total from 38 different domains and the anchor text is a combination of 'ugg boots for women' from TLDs in China, Russia and North Korea. The PR of these sites is 15 are n/a, 12 are 0 and the other 11 range between 1 - 6. More interestingly, all the links point to 1 single page on the domain. I have taken down that page now and wondering if I should 'disavow' the offending links in Google and Bing? Clearly with such a high % of my total links now being Spam, I want to be proactive so this does not hurt my rankings in search. If a Spambot is behind it then the issue is going to get worse moving forward. Any advice is welcome...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Ubique0 -
Suggestion for Link Directory Script?
I own a subscription to PHP Link Directory but was wondering if anyone could suggest an alternative link directory script/software/service to PHPLD. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | fergusonconsulting0 -
Link directories question
Looking over a clients site and they have a bunch of link directory links that seem very skeptical to me, but the mozrank and authority seem to be ok on the home page. One directory is addlinkzfree and they have the same template and layout as a few other directories this client has. Link page has no juice whatsover, but home page has PA 54, MR 5.04 and root domain is DA 45. At first glance this would appear to be respectable numbers right? But the title of the directory and multitude of links lead me to think its nothing but a link farm. Should I advise the client to run and try to remove links from these type sites even though home page has decent scores? Im of the mindset that anything diredctory with links, free, partners etc in title need be avoided. Would appreciate any backup on this or am I just being paranoid?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | anthonytjm0 -
Powered by/Credit backlinks and nofollow
Pseudo question: I have a website that has 100K pages. On about 50K of those pages I have information that is fed to me via an outside 3rd-party website. Now, I like to give credit where credit is due, so I add a backlink to the website that is feeding me this content. A simple backlink like so: Information provided by: Company ABC Now, this 3rd-party website wants me to remove the nofollow tags from the backlink, but I am very, very skeptical because to me, sending ~50K dofollow backlinks to a single site might make the Google monster upset with me. This 3rd-party site is being very hard-headed about this, to the point where I am thinking of terminating the relationship all together. I digress. Scoured the net before writing this, but couldn't really find anything directly related to my issue. Thoughts? Is a nofollow required here? We're not talking 1 or 2 links here; we're talking tens of thousands (50K is low; it will probably be upwards of 100K when all is said and done as my site has many, many pages). Thanks in advance.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | THB0