SEOMoz Paid Directories List.... Are paid links always bad?

[JohnW-UK]

We all know paid links are bad.... so it begs the question.... why does the SEOMoz directory list have so many directories that only submit businesses for a fee.... i.e. a paid link. Are they worth paying for or not?

Interested to hear peoples thoughts and experiences with some of the directories listed on the SEOMoz directory list....

[SEO5Team]

Tried all of them. Did not isolate the effectiveness of each directory however did lead to a positive result overall.

[JohnW-UK]

Have you tried any? Which ones did you target and if not why didn't you?

In Joeant already. whats UBL?

[JohnW-UK]

It's a UK based business so don't think BBB is the right directory. I'm still going through the list to weed out the crap. Have you tried any? Any noticeable returns?

[William.Lau]

The only few I'd say are BBB and Yahoo.

[SEO5Team]

I'd suggest sticking with the quality paid directories like UBL, Yahoo , Joant and ,BBB.

[JohnW-UK]

I might try one of the general ones..... Have you tried any and had any luck from them?

[William.Lau]

Some of the directories on the list are no longer quality directories. But some still are.

At the end of the day directories are not as effective as they use to be. However, those that are quality will require payment.

Payments for listing is sort of a way to weed out the spammers because look at all the free ones, they have lots of spammy sites.

Paid links are not always lets say negative. In Google's perspective it is usually cases where someone buys a footer link for like $XXX for a year. Think about PR sites, although they don't count as much they still are effective sometimes in a marketing perspective.