Lead Generation Sources Affected by Penguin?

[ClarityVentures]

Hi! My company used to receive dozens of qualified leads from paid listings in directories that were relevant to our services. Lately, these leads have dropped dramatically. For those of you who use directories as a lead source (rather than simply for link building), have you noticed anything similar? How are you coping with this? In your opinion, will lead-generating directories become a thing of the past?

[ClarityVentures]

Hi, thanks for responding! I'm certainly aware that many directories were affected by Penguin, but we tend to use trustworthy, hyper-specific directories that really do generate new clients for us. Since directories like this (webdesignfinders for web design, for example) are less for the link and more for the lead potential, I thought they might be more likely to be in the clear, post-Penguin.

Is anyone else adjusting their lead-generation strategies to accommodate this?

[MarieHaynes]

A while back, a bunch of directories were removed from the Google index - see http://www.seroundtable.com/google-directory-removal-15151.html.

This could be part of the problem as well.  Mind you, these were mostly free directories.

I could certainly see how Penguin could affect you though.  A lot of these directories got their ranks by getting people to link back to them with certain anchor text, like "We're listed in widgets directory."  All of that keyword specific anchor text could certainly get a directory penalized or algorithmically devalued (i.e. Penguin.)

[SEODinosaur]

Many directory sites were affected by penguin..http://www.seomoz.org/blog/web-directory-submission-danger