Directory Listings with anchor text = Should we just Delete them all?
-
Hi Dr Moz'ers
So our ex-contracted SEO "experts" have a enlisted our website to 40 odd directories with the same key word and copy.
Is it best to just delete them all to avoid a possible negative SEO/Google outcome?
Cheers
-
Exactly as Anirban says. We're seeing a lot of directory SEO questions lately, and it's worrying. Both the exact anchor text and the fact that directory links are more often than not junk is why you should remove them.
If they were directories that were HIGHLY relevant to your business and frequented by people looking for your type of services, they might be fine. For instance, if you found a directory listing gardeners, plumbers, electricians and builders in Los Angeles and you happen to be a gardener in Los Angeles, there is some sense here.
However, the vast majority of directory submissions we see are made-for-SEO and should be removed ASAP.
-
I suggest you delete them not because of same anchor text, but because of directory links which is of low quality and it may harm your site.
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 can I identify links that point to a specific landing page with a specific anchor text on my own website?
I am trying to identify buttons and links that point to a specific landing page on our website that have a certain word in the anchor text and I would like to know the referring page URL too. Does anybody have an idea on how to do this? We have above a hundred landing pages and I would rather not go through them one by one 😄 Thanks for the help
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | 10to8-Moz0 -
Seo consulting service for just one site ?
I make a living off my site, so everytime I have to make a critical decision on SEO, I have a lot of fear that I could make things worse and lose everything. I can find solutions here and google, but there always a lot of different opinions, so I was thinking in hiring someone to pick his brain and do what he/she thinks its best in my case. What do you guys think about this ? Do you have someone to recommend ? That you see his work with good results ? I have a wordpress blog (micro businnes), so my budget is not big.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Glinski1 -
Multiple H2 with no direct links to content and invisible body text - is this an issue?
OK, so we've lost pagerank and I think it's because of the way our site works (and we operate it). We have a videofolio, which shows on most of our pages, showcasing our work. Over time, we have tended to unpublish these pages and created new videofolio pages to show on our home page and relevant pages. The videofolio is a set of pages, each with a title, body text and a place to insert a link to the video, which is played through a videofolio showcase on our website (www.curveball-media.co.uk). Each is set a category, e.g. film, and when the user clicks the tab for 'film', the thumbnails pop up and the user can play the video. We have to work it this way as it's the only way to remove the videos from showing on our home page and to show new content instead. Simply deselecting a category still allows the videos to be seen when the 'all' category is selected by the user. Last week, I found a way of bringing back these unpublished pages by removing the 'all' tab from the videofolio. Then I turned each one into a blog like structure instead. Essentially, instead of the video link being played through the videofolio, we deselected a category (e.g. animation, film etc) and left the page floating. The only way you can access it without being attached to a videofolio category is through the direct link. By turning off the 'all' category and deselecting the page from any other categories, we were able to properly SEO these pages. NB: If they are created for use with the videofolio, you can have only extremely limited body text and no H2, as this is the text that appears when you hover over the video thumbnail. That's just the nature of the template. What I didn't anticipate is that now the code on the home page shows all these now (un)published pages and their corresponding H2 tags. Without a category selected, there is no way to get to these pages unless I create a direct link. I plan to do this through a blog post. In the home page code, the entire videofolio page shows, including the body text and link to the video. **This text doesn't show on the home page though, i.e. the user never sees this text. ** 1. Is it an issue to have so many similar H2 tags on the homepage? 2. Is it an issue that the code has text which is essentially invisible on the home page? 3. Is it an issue that the content is not linked to through the home page visibly? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | curveballmedia0 -
Google pulling brand snippets from only some of my pages. Different settings or are they just being selective?
Hi, Moz community For some of the category-pages, Google is showing some of the brands in the SERP, like this: http://www.screencast.com/t/62wldbwc
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Inevo
This is the page-url: https://www.gsport.no/sport/loep/lopeklaer/loepebukse For other category-pages that seemingly is built with similar code and settings, Google doesn't show brands in the snippet: http://www.screencast.com/t/zU9cg7odf
The page-url: https://www.gsport.no/sport/loep/lopeklaer/loepejakke This all begs the questions:
If the two pages contain the same code/html in terms of schema.org / rich snippets, why is Google choosing to display the brands in the SERP for only one of them? And is there something I can do in order to make them display the brands for all my pages? Thank you
Sigurd Bjurbeck, INEVO (digital agency)0 -
Is there a way to no index no follow sections on a page to avoid duplicative text issues?
I'm working on an event-related site where every blog post starts with an introductory header about the event and then a Call To Action at the end which gives info about the Registration Deadline. I'm wondering if there is something we can and should do to avoid duplicative content penalties. Should these go in a widget or is there some way to No Index, No Follow a section of text? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Spiral_Marketing0 -
List of SEO "to do's" to increase organic rankings
We are looking for a complete list of all white hat SEO "to do's" that an SEO firm should do in order to help increase Google/Bing/Yahoo organic rankings. We would like to use this list to be sure that the SEO company/individual we choose uses all these white hat items as part of an overall SEO strategy to increase organic rankings. Can anyone please point me in the right direction as to where we can obtain this complete list? If this is not the best approach, please let me know what is, as I am not an SEO person. Thank you kindly in advance
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | RetractableAwnings.com0 -
Undocumented anchor-text API result
Regarding the anchor-text api, there is no definition for *imr on the wiki:
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sycorr
http://apiwiki.seomoz.org/w/page/13991127/Anchor Text API ie. http://lsapi.seomoz.com/linkscape/anchor-text/google.com?Scope=phrase_to_page&Cols=2048&Sort=domains_linking_page&Expires=1329770786.46868 returns "[{"apuimr":5.422834471373288e-12},{"apuimr":4.785130890652429e-13},{"apuimr":2.922901387480201e-09}]" What is *imr?0 -
Should the sitemap include just menu pages or all pages site wide?
I have a Drupal site that utilizes Solr, with 10 menu pages and about 4,000 pages of content. Redoing a few things and we'll need to revamp the sitemap. Typically I'd jam all pages into a single sitemap and that's it, but post-Panda, should I do anything different?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EricPacifico0