Niche Directories
-
Hello,
I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice.
DMOZ and Best of the Web fall into that category.
And so do some niche directories.
How do you determine whether to go with a niche directory or not?
Also, what's the ratio of how many niche directory links you'd want compared to other types of links (being very safe) 3:1? 4:1? 5:1? Does it matter what your other links are?
Thanks.
-
"I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice."
Yeah, I agree that this statement is pretty naive. You shouldn't expect to get much traffic from Yahoo or DMOZ. People use these directories for the link juice and the credibility boost, not traffic. Since both directories editorially approve their links, they still carry a bit of weight (although exactly how much is up for debate).
-
I totally agree with the statement "I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice."
However... I have a bit of an issue with Best of the Web (and many other "quality" Directories). The only reason that you would want a link without link juice is if it was bringing in traffic.
We have been on BOTW for 3 years on 5 of our websites. I have just checked and we have received a total of 9 clicks (across the board) in those 3 years. Hardly worth writing home about.
I've never met a person that uses directories other than (yell.com perhaps). I have even forced myself to use BOTW for a week instead of Google and it only lasted 3 days before I gave up.
Am I missing something?
I also just did a search on BOTW for "Air Conditioning" and this result came up: http://www.kingair.com.au (just one example that took me 10 seconds to find)
Is this really "The Best of The Web". Why would Google trust their judgement?
-
DMOZ, BOTW, and Yahoo are really the only directories worth submitting to, plus maybe a couple of niche specific directories and local directories. That's like maybe a dozen directories tops.
As long as you keep directory submissions to a minimum, it's not going to get you penalized, so there is no need to worry about "ratios" or anything like that, although you may want to vary your anchor text or stick to your brand name.
The bigger issue is that directory links don't carry that much value, so you'll want to acquire relevant, high authority links outside of directories if you actually want to rank.
-
If you find the directory useful as a user then it's safe to get a link there. If you wouldn't use the directory yourself it's best to just steer clear of it. I can't imagine many situations in which you would want more than 10 niche directory links because there just aren't that many quality directories any more.
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
-
Traffic going down in all sites in a niche
Hello, A client has three Ecommerce sites in a niche. Because of competition and a (possibly) non manual penalty due to doorways and paid links (though I think it's mainly competition too) our traffic is going down. What are the keys to increasing traffic at this point. Feel free to include tricks that cost money. A Hrefs (I love Moz though!) has some neat content tricks. Please give me the best tricks in the industry to increase traffic. We're adding content to the main site of the three and maybe that's what to focus on, but we're having trouble driving serious traffic with the content. We need serious traffic. We are experts in our field and capable of almost anything as far as information goes in our field. Thanks.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
Submitting url to link directories seen as un-natural link building?
Hi I have been a lurker for a long time, so I finally took the step to make my 1st post, and will hopefully start giving back more in the future since I have gained invaluable info from this great site Background I hired a new freelancer on our team of SEO consultants ("specialists") During the course a month he (the new consultant) submitted our website to numerous link directories (he assured me this is good), today I received the report of the work he had been doing for the past 4-weeks. I opened the report and I was furious and wanted to sack him there and then The Problem / My Question He had submitted our website to 150 directories with various levels of page rank, ranging from 7-1. Most of the directories are totally irrelevant to our niche (we are in the catering business) and he had gone and submitted the site to directories such as "finance busters", "questfinder" etc For all 150 submissions he used: exactly the same url exactly the same title exactly the same description exactly the same keywords My Concern Am I right to be worried about this? Or am I completely wrong and may this actually have an effect (even if none)? The way I see it is that Google is seeing 150 duplicate links coming from irrelevant directories all within a months time, which will trigger a red flag and possibly do major damage to my site, which has always been strictly white hat and been doing pretty well. p.s does link directory submissions even count these days anyway? Thanks for reading and advice very much welcome
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | timthetanker0 -
Multiple sites in the same niche (Should we redirect these to our Main Site)
I will keep this short and sweet. We have some websites in the same niche area but want to focus only on our newest site (basically all the information that was being posted on the other sites will now be part of our new site) This will save us a lot of time and increase our focus on 1 entity. Should we redirect these website with a 301 redirect to the specific categories that they focus on in the new site? or should we redirect to the main domain.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | CMcMullen0 -
Are 2 sites in same niche from same company white hat?
Hello, We want to open a second eCommerce store. Our first one is doing well. It would be different code, different graphics, a different category/menu system, but many of the products will be the same. Will that be safe and white hat now and into the future to have 2? Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW0 -
How to know if a link in a directory will be good for my site?
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?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | te_c0 -
Ethical question about setting up a local business directory...
I've just launched a local business directory that allows the small businesses in my local area to get noticed by a very targeted audience. People such as self-employed builders, painters and decorators and the like. As well as helping them out, they'll be helping me out by testing the waters of local keywords and seeing just how difficult and how much traffic they'll get. Kind of like spreading myself across 100's of keywords without the need for domains etc. All the links on there are nofollow, but what are the ethics behind letting my clients have a dofollow link from it? I wouldn't use this directory as a marketing tool for my self and my business, but if I acquired a client from my website or other source, but they would benefit from a dofollow link?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jasonwdexter0 -
Bid Directories - Recipe for success or disaster?
Hi There SEO Elite, One of my competitors has recently gone from page 3 to well above me on page 1 on our moderately high competitive keyword. Their site has 20 pages and ours is a combined e-commerce / niche information site with 1000 pages+ of which 40 are purely informational written by us,300 PDF brochures and 550+products with mostly hand written descriptions. On looking at the competitor's links in Open Site explorer, they had huge numbers of inbound links from bid directories with many using anchor text of the keyword, and usually $2 bids. Many of the bid directories are 'linked' as they all have an almost identical template and menu etc. But these are all giving the top PA and DAs on their report. Their DA, PA and LRD is also marginally less than ours? Our total links is 26,000 theirs is 100? Shouldn't penguin be burying them for these low quality paid links? Or is it just not been gotten around to yet? They seem to be sailing high on $500 worth of Bid Directory links. To follow or stay away?.....that is the question Also, other competitors have Yahoo directory listings. These are $300. Is Yahoo directory entry worth it for our SEO with Google being 80-85% of my inbound search traffic? Thanks for your advice
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BM70 -
Ways to find private - non-indexed forums in a niche
I would wondering if there were ways to find non-indexed content in private forums/discussion boards. Is there a scalable 'foot-print' that suggests the forum has a private section?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | ilyaelbert0