Are directory listings still appropriate in 2013? Aren't they old-style SEO and Penguin-worthy?
-
We have been reviewing our off-page SEO strategy for clients and as part of that process, we are looking at a number of superb info-graphics on the subject. I see that some of current ones still list "Directories" as being part of their off-page strategy.
Aren't these directories mainly there for link-building purposes and provide Users no real benefit? I don't think I've ever seen a directory that I would use, apart for SEO research.
Surely Google's Penguin algorithm would see directories in the same way and give them less value, or even penalise websites that use them to try to boost page rank?
If I were to list my websites on directories it wouldn't be to share my lovely content with people that use directories to find great sites, it would be to sneakily build page rank.
Am I missing the point?
Thanks
Scott -
Thanks, I appreciate your response.
Scott
-
Hi, thanks for you reply. One of my clients, build garden offices and I have explored a lot of garden related directories. There are loads. Defining which is worthy isn't always straight forward. Some sites look good at first glance, but when you dig deeper, they seem pretty spammy. I got caught out with one website which when I added my listing it appeared on thousands of pages in a number of sites under an umbrella called Durokon. All horribly similar. I still can't work out if that site is real or not. I tried to contact them, but no luck, so I'm now assuming it's a link farm of sorts.
I suppose we need to be more critical when doing work like this.
Thanks
Scott -
I think any directory that is either niche relevant or local is still valuable! Especially in terms of local optimization because they also serve as citations!
-
95% of directories are for passing PR and I wouldn't use them for link building. There are only a few like Yahoo or Dmoz that I would consider safe.
-
Scott,
You are right - the majority of directories don't really seem to provide much real value to actual users. I would suggest being extremely critical and conservative if you do decide to pursue 'general' web directory links.
There are niche directories out there such as directories that feature businesses that are green, and electrical contractor directories. These types of hyper relevant directories both add value and Google responds well to them. The more general type of directories are the ones that tend to attract the penguin's wrath. Hope that helps!
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
-
Should I Report A SEO Agency to Google
Our competitor has employed the services of a spammy SEO agency that sends spammy links to our site. Though our rankings were affected we have taken the necessary steps. It is possible to send evidence to Google so that they can take down the site. I want to take this action so that other sites will not be affected by them again.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Halmblogmusic0 -
How to find trustful seo specialist?
How to find trustful seo specialist if you don't know about SEO a lot?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DigiVital1 -
HELP!! We are losing search visibility fast and I don't know why?
We have recently moved from http to https - could this be a problem? https://www.thepresentfinder.co.uk As far as I'm aware we are doing everything by SEO best practice and have no manual penalties, all content is unique and we are not doing any link farming etc...
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | The-Present-Finder0 -
What is your SEO agency doing in terms of link building for clients?
What are you or your SEO agency doing for your client's link building efforts? What are you (or the agency) doing yourself, or out-sourcing, or having the client do for link building? If a new client needs some serious link building done, what do you prescribe and implement straight off the bat? What are your go-to link building tactics for clients? What are the link building challenges faced by your agency in 2013/2014? What's working for your agency and what's not? Does your agency work closely with the client's marketing department to gain link traction? If so, what are collaborating on? What else might you be willing to share about your agencies link building practices? Thanks
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Martin_S0 -
If our site hasn't been hit with the Phantom Update, are we clear?
Our SEO provider created a bunch of "unique url" websites that have direct match domain names. The content is pretty much the same for over 130 websites (city name is different) that link directly to our main site. For me this was a huge red flag, but when I questioned them and they said it was fine. We haven't seen a drop in traffic, but concerned that Google just hasn't gotten to us. DA for each of these sites are 1 after several months. Should we be worried? I think yes, but I am an SEO newbie.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Buddys0 -
Penguin issues
Hello everyone, I run about 10 sites and pretty much every single one got hit by Penguin (the traffic plummeted on 24th April). I have never done reciprocal links (except 1 domain upto 2005 or so), I have never bought links, I have never spammed message boards or anything like that (except 1 different domain got hit by negative SEO by someone else) and I have never employed anyone to do any of the above. The way I have created sites for the last 10 years is to try to make them useful and let the links build naturally which more or less worked until April this year. I've been tearing my hair out ever since. The only thing you can say about all of them (apart from that I own them but I've been careful with whois etc) is that the link profile is 100% natural apart from the 2 provisos above. Since April I've hired people but I'm down $20K but not any better in the rankings. A few of the sites are: short-hairstyles.com was number 1 for short hairstyles and short haircuts for years then Penguin came and its dropped off for both. It had 10000 or so spammy message board links posted by someone as negative seo I have got some removed but google webmaster tools still reports them as there. There are tentative signs of recovery (maybe) but no traffic increase. 1001-hairstyles.com has been there or there abouts for 10 years for the keyword hairstyles and hair styles until April. A site ourlipsaresealed.skyblogs.be has 30000 links to it (there are only 40000 total) with the anchor text haarstijls which is dutch for hairstyles, I don't think its malicious just they set a template and do a new page every day and they also link in the same way to a competitor who wasn't affected. An seo firm have been working on this one for a few months, the traffic increased 50% a couple of weeks ago but bombed the day after to worse than before. Prom-hairstyles.org when the same way as above in April. The only back link oddity is a site polyvore.com links to it about 400 times (out of 1000 or so total) they are using our pictures to sell their prom dresses (with out permission) but mostly deep link. Most of the other sites went in a similar way but have no obvious backlink anomalies. Do I use the link disavowel tool? I am a bit wary of it because if you watch matt cutts video he keeps reiterating that the tool is for people who have used dodgy link practises in the past and want to do a clean up but that isn't me so am I owning up to something I haven't done by using it? Are the search results as strange in everybody's niche? In mine there is some real dross as well as loads of pinterest and other user generated stuff. Sorry to go on for so long and thanks for getting this far. Ian
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jwdl0 -
Seo style="display: none;" ?
i want to have a funktion which shortens text in categorie view in my shop. apple is doing this in their product configurator see the "learn more" button at the right side: http://store.apple.com/us/configure/MC915LL/A apple is doing this by adding dynamic content but i want it more seo type by leaving the content indexable by google. i know from a search that this was used in the past years by black had seos to cover keywordstuffing. i also read an article at google. i beleive that this is years ago and keywordstuffing is completly no option anymore. so i beleive that google just would recognise it like the way its meant to be. but if i would not be sure i would not ask here 🙂 what do you think?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | kynop0
