Paid for Directory Listings and no-follows
-
Was just about to book an advert in a directory until the salesperson told me that the directory listing would be replicated over 40 times, from different websites (they white label the directory to different sites, who then sell their own adverts in the directory).
I asked them whether they did nofollows - they didn't know what they were, so clearly not.
I'm thinking 40 plus identical links coming through (over 10% of total links to site) could attract punishment from Google. Your thoughts would be welcome.
Thanking you in advance, Luke
-
I have been in a similar situation myself and it is a judgement call - I always tend to air on the side of caution. How I look at it with a lot of the paid directories is the fact that they aren't purposefully manipulating search doesn't mean they aren't going to be hit at some point and when they are you don't really want to be associated with it in my opinion. A lot of business directories purely exist on customers paying for entry and advertising and are not therefore overly concerned with their SEO.
You could, as I have done, ask to talk to their development team/technical - you could also analyse whether they are using no follows on links and ask for examples of their white label sites. Depends how much time you want to put into it and whether you think it could be truly worth using them if you weren't endangering your SEO work..
-
Thanks for the useful feedback Matt - It sure is a tough one - they are ranked in top 3 for a specific business category, they are relevant to client, and they channel large numbers of bookings to target geographical region.
That said, booking with them could undo my SEO work, so not worth the risk. My impression is they're not being purposefully manipulative - it's just they don't get the SEO implications of what they're doing.
-
I would stay away Luke because they are:
-
Likely to be low value.
-
If they have links between their directories this is basically a link network and you don't want any part of it.
-
With link profiles being under more scrutiny than ever and spam link tactics are being monitored more thoroughly you are likely to suffer a punishment from Google because this would strike as a clear attempt at manipulation of search rankings.
The penguin will be visiting.
These are my thoughts and I wouldn't risk it if I were you - plus I definitely wouldn't pay for the privilege!!
-
-
My personal view is that directory listings don't help if they are not from very reputable and topical ones. Even if they are, their affect is very low. However, most of the paid listings are no-follow because in case Google detects link buying to affect PageRank, it penalize the buyer as well as the seller.
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
-
How to unrank your content by following expert advice [rant]
Hi, As you can probably see from the title, a massive rant is coming up. I must admit I no longer understand SEO and I just wanted to see if you have any ideas what might be wrong. So, I read this blog post on MOZ https://moz.com/blog/influence-googles-ranking-factor - where the chap is improving ranking of content that is already ranking reasonably well. I've got two bits of news for you. The good news is - yes, you can change your articles' ranking in an afternoon. Bad news - your articles drop out of Top 100. I'll give you a bit more details hoping you can spot what's wrong. Disclaimer - I'm not calling out BS, I'm sure the blogger is a genuine person and he's probably has had success implementing this. The site is in a narrow but popular ecommerce niche where the Top 20 results are taken by various retailers who have simply copy/pasted product descriptions from the manufacturer's websites. The link profile strength is varied and I'm not making this up. The Top 20 sites range from DA:4 to DA:56. When I saw this I said to myself, it should be fairly easy to rank because surely the backlinks ranking factor weight is not as heavy in this niche as it is in other niches. My site is DA:18 which is much better than DA:4. So, even if I make my pages tiny tiny bit better than this DA:4 site, I should outrank it, right? Well, I managed to outrank it with really crap content. So, I got to rank two high-traffic keywords in #8 or #9 with very little effort. And I wish I stayed there because what followed just completely ruined my rankings. I won't repeat what was written in the blog. If you're interested, go and read it, but I used it as a blueprint and bingo, indeed Google changed my ranking in just a couple of hours. Wait, I lost more than 90 positions!!!! I'm now outside Top100. Now even irrelevant sites in Chinese and Russian are in front of me. They don't even sell the products. No, they're even in different niches altogether but they still outrank me. I now know exactly what Alice in Wonderland felt like. I want out please!!!!
Algorithm Updates | | GiantsCauseway0 -
Where can I find a list of CTRs by search engine position, beyond the top 20?
I'm trying to find a comprehensive list of CTRs by search enginge position. The most exhaustive list I've found is this one: https://www.advancedwebranking.com/cloud/ctrstudy/ - which shows CTRs by industry for the positions 1-21. I'm interested in seeing the rates for lower positions as well - does anyone in the community know any (preferably recent) resources for this? Thank you.
Algorithm Updates | | PrebenKaas0 -
Any recent updates from Google or community on sub domains vs sub directories?
Hi all, This has been a debate for years and I have noticed most of the SEOs suggest to go or switch to sub directories instead of sub domains. Still is this the same or any new updates from Google or SEO community? We have moved a sub domain to sub directory last year. The result was sub directory content started ranking good; but no change in website rankings. Because of moving sub domains to sub directories, will the linkjuice/PR of the website gets diluted as the number of pages increases which will takeaway soe authority? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Removing an old Google places listing for a newer version?
Hey there, I was wondering whether you could help me out on the following; One of our clients has a Google places listing that we created for their business but it appears to be being blocked - or at least conflicting - with an old listing. As such, Google appears to be showing the old listing with an outdated URL and company name - rather than the new one. Does anyone know how I can go about removing this listing or showing that the newer one is now more relevant? Unfortunately, I don't have the logins for the old places listing. Old listing; https://plus.google.com/105224923085379238289 New listing; https://plus.google.com/b/114641937407677713536/114641937407677713536
Algorithm Updates | | Webrevolve0 -
Are press releases a form of paid links? Matt Cutts on paid links
According to Matt Cutts latest video about paid links everything that allows Page Rank to pass through is considered paid link and is against Google's rules. I think this is geared more towards directories but aren't 90% of press releases just another form of paid links? You pay to game the system, to manipulate the search engines. He goes on to say that if you "nofollow" the link there will be no penalty. It will be interesting to see how much their revenues will decrease if all press release websites & article distribution networks will have to nofollow their outbound links. He makes it very clear that paid ads are different because they do not manipulate search engines in any way. What do you guys think?
Algorithm Updates | | echo10 -
Business Listings
So, There are no stupid questions right? I am thinking about adding my website to a number of business directories and websites. I have added it to several sites which do not charge a listing fee. There are several sites out there which charge anywhere from 10 dollars to hundreds of dollars. My question is: Is there a way to figure out ahead of time the cost/benefit relationship between the price paid for several listings....... and the likely increase in page rank due to the increase of links to the website. Or what number and quality of links I may need to aquire in order to increase my page rank? I appreciate all the help this community has provided in the past. While my website is not ranking the best......... its a solid contender! Thanks for your time and consideration in this matter.
Algorithm Updates | | APICDA0 -
Is there a way to know what rank my site is listed on google ?
My current client web page was listed at the 4th page 1 month ago. Im trying real hard to make him understand that the traffic from beiing on the first page is important and that he need to give me additionnal ressource to make it happen ( i don't prog at all). So i had the idea of checking every page to see whats is current rank. but instead of looking from page 1 to page X, i was wondering if there was something somewhere that could give me my rank right away. It woud help saving time. Thx.
Algorithm Updates | | Promoteam0 -
If a page one result for a keyword is mostly directories, do I have a chance to rank for this keyword?
I feel like although directories carry a lot of weight and links, I'd think that my client would be able to gain a top position, since none of the others are competitor pages, nor are the directories engaging.
Algorithm Updates | | randallseo0