Directory subission post penguin
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
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<sup>th</sup>aug up until 3<sup>rd</sup> 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?
-
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?
-
A good point
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Directory Listing without Permission... Was your company listed here also likes ours?
We just found a backlink for our site from a brand spanking new, week-old directory site. We did not create this, so aside from submitting a request to remove it through their contact form (which we already did), do you have any other tips to get this removed beside submitting a disavow request. http://seo-company-in.com//United_States/North_Carolina/whiteboard-creations-cary-and-raleigh-nc-web-design-and-seo-service-267 Also, check to make sure your company isn't listed as well without your permission (not providing a functioning link back for them, but enter in their domain to check it out. Let me know your thoughts. - Patrick
Link Building | | WhiteboardCreations0 -
Sales agents posting job listings
So we are in the middle of a hiring blitz looking for sales agents in different areas of the country. One of our internal sales agents used a program called Job-a-matic which appears to be a product developed or sponsored by SimplyHired. This software seems to have put our job posting on a lot strange sites really unrelated to our industry and they job description such as: truck driver jobs teen jobs white collar jobs jobs a go-go database admin jobs medical coding and many many more When I Google our company name I see all of these listing on pages 3, 4, 5 etc . Is it possible that Google may see these listings as spammy or paid links? It appears as if these listing were just automatically generated and not really controlled in anyway. I'm worried that they could have generated a penalty as we did experience a significant drop in traffic. Thanks -Brandon
Link Building | | brandzz0 -
Content Writing for the Internal blog or guest posting on external blogs
Hi All My question is If I am writing an informative article for quality content and to help attract visitors Do I add the article to my own website and try to get visitors via link building or do I post the article as a Guest post on another website with links back to the relevant pages or should I do both and if so what % eg 50% blog posts and 50 % intenral posts thanks in advance
Link Building | | ingageseo0 -
Guest posts on sites you buy advertising with?
What are your thoughts about the following scenarios. Scenario 1: You purchased a banner ad on a site for $50. Then you notice that the site accepts guest posts and you contribute a guest article which has a followed link. Scenario 2: You pitch a guest post to a blog and they say sure but first pay us $50. You say, I can't pay for links but how about I buy an ad spot for $50 instead in appreciation of you reviewing by submission. Scenario 3: You pitch a guest post to a blog and they say sure but it will cost $50 to be published. You say sure and pay them. Which of these would go against Google's guidelines and be considered a paid link? It seems like they are all buying links to a different degree, but they would all be indistinguishable to Google.
Link Building | | ProjectLabs1 -
Backlink's using duplicate content in article directories
I've had a link build report of all the links an SEO company have got us but a simple search for some of the content in Google with phrase match brings up about 3 pages of the same content posted to different article sites. I think it is doing something but will it just be penalised over time?
Link Building | | acs1110 -
Our website has seen a steady decline in rankings over the past few months, is there any merit to paid bulk directory submission? Or could it potentially harm our campaign.
Our website has been experiencing a slow but steady decline in rankings despite our activity on social media platforms, is there any value in paying a large sum for bulk directory submission? Or will this only result in our overall website authority decreasing further due to unnatural links. Would really appreciate any help.
Link Building | | Peter.Huxley590 -
Directories
Hello, We are a UK based business targeting the UK market (at the moment), we are looking at placing our sites URL in directories that are based in the UK as well, should we stick to this market or should we be placing our URL in non UK based directories? Thanks Daniel
Link Building | | LushDuck0 -
Is it worth editing older blog posts for SEO purposes?
The title of the question asks it all. One site I currently work on has a handful of blog posts that rank really well in the SERPS for certain "long-tail" searches. Would it be worth the time to, when I have it, to go back and edit the blogs little by little to help with SEO and building some links throughout the site to get people where we need them to go? Basically "sprucing" up the blog posts to make them more readable, more engaging and help some link building efforts within the domain. Thoughts?
Link Building | | TKIGWebTeam1