How to know if a link in a directory will be good for my site?
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Hi!
Some time ago, a friend of my added our site to a directory. I did not notice it until today, when in the search results for my domain name, the directory came in the first page, in the four position. My friend wrote a nice article, describing our bussiness, and the page has a doFollow link.
Looking at the metrics of that directory, I found the following:
- Domain Authority: 70; main page authority: 76; linking domain roots: 1383; total links: 94663 (several anchor texts); facebook shares: 26; facebook likes: 14; tweets: 20; Google +1: 15.
The directory accept a free article about a company, does not review it before it is published, but look for duplicated articles representing spam; so one company can only have one listing (in theory).
Is there any formula to know if a directory is safe to publish a doFollow link? If they don't review the link I would say is not a good signal, but is there any other factors to take into account?
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You want to stay away from directories that have little to no screening process. If it's easy to get, it's not worth it. Make sure to do an "SEO background check" on them as well by checking their backlinks in open site explorer. See if they have good quality links, many linking c-blocks, DA, PA, PR, etc..
Here are some great directories, but you have to pay:
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Yahoo Directory ($299/Year)
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Best of the Web ($299/One-time)
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Business.com ($299/Year)
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JoeAnt ($39/One-time)
SEOmoz also has a list of good directories here http://www.seomoz.org/directories
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