Directory subission post penguin

[shauny35]

Does anyone have thoughts on doing mass directory submissions post penguin?

I know the value of the links are pretty worthless I am considering a submission service for nothing more than to get my number of different c-blocks up

Will directories be looked upon as link networks?

Is worth it?

[shauny35]

Thanks dohertyf. I do get your point, but this isn’t the site I’m talking about and I have never had any warnings for this site.

The site that I am referring to does have a few crappy directory links pointing at it from years back and certainly nowhere near the amount I see pointing back to competing sites. And if these links were a problem why didn’t I get the notice earlier? It seems a big coincidence that I got the warning immediately after I submitted to these new directories.

[dohertyjf]

Hey Shauny -

I'm not seeing those directory links you're talking about in either OSE or Majestic. What I do see, though, is these links which appear to be from a link network (since all the links are the same) -

http://www.directorio.internet.com.pe/Top/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley http://www.smart-dir.com/dir/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley http://www.gosearchfor.com/directory/Regional/Europe/United_Kingdom/England/Manchester/Worsley

I'd go and remove those links, if your rankings dropped.

In my opinion, right now directories are too risky for my clients and my own sites. The only ones that I would do are BetterBusinessBureau (in the US), DMOZ, and Yahoo directory. Other than that, I steer clear of them and have moved my clients away from them.

[shauny35]

Directory Submission Update

I decided to give a few directories a go.

Here’s what happened:

1. I manually submitted my site to 25 directories

2.  I chose from the list of directories on moz. All the directories I submitted to were pr2 – pr6 with good moz rank (I checked them all out individually).

3. I used variations of brand anchors and different descriptions for each listing

4. I used the paid option for all the directories for guaranteed/faster review

5. I spread the submissions out over 10 days from 24^thaug up until 3^rd sept

On the 7th of September I received a “notice of detected unnatural links” from G. all of my homepage keywords have dropped about 10 places but inner pages are still pretty much the same

Any thoughts on how I should move forwards?

[shauny35]

When I look at the competitors that rank above me the on-page optimisation and content quality is just about the same as mine and in some cases I feel not as good.

When I look at their link profile I see pretty much the same good quality backlinks as my own the only difference is that they all seem to have in common (and I don’t) is lots of low quality directory links which is boosting the amount of c-blocks pointing to their sites

I know that articles, guest posts etc. (which I already do) will build the extra c-block links but my theory is get the crappy directory links just to increase the number of c-blocks pointing back to me?

[Webrevolve]

A good point

[redfishking]

While i posted something contrary a few minutes ago..MANUAL directory submission cannot hurt.  However, I doubt it helps much these days.

At this time, we have many 1-5 ranked keywords, and have given up directory submission altogether on it.

Recommendation (that we are still trying to figure out..)Write articles, post blogs build a Tribe that follows you - its a new world!  Forget the tricks.

[TheSEODR]

Good answers here. I would also like to suggest spreading your directory submissions out over a period of time. This way you don't have a bunch of links pointing to your site - it will look unnatural.

Submissions to human edited, niche- or geographically-related directories is best practice.

[Webrevolve]

I'd agree with Keven, there is nothing wrong with directory submissions as long as they are relevant and manually reviewed by an editor. Also look into local and niche directories that suit your site business.

The problems with directory submissions for me begin with mass submissions where the work is outsourced or automated - I cant see you getting any value from this.

There is a great list of decent directories right here on moz, with a guide.

[KevinH]

I personally have no issue with directory submission. I have grave concerns about MASS submission and won't do it (some people do and don't seem to get 'hammered' by Google, but I'm not risking a short gain against long term pain if G ever gets its algo to match the rhetoric).

The only directories I list in are those that have a reasonable chance to actually bring traffic for my customers.