Which Directory Sites to Choose?
-
Hi All
I am a newbie to SEO and have a quick Q.
Assuming that appropriate steps would be to;
a) Ensure all onsite matters are are correct, title tags, meta descriptions, redirects, canonical issues.
b) Submit to Directories
c) Build Links
I am approaching step b)
Which Directories are worth submitting to? For those which require payment, how can I decide which are value for money or should I just use SEOMOZ list of links and assume that theyre worth the $50 - $100 if my higher ranking competitors have links from these directories. Also, can this be looked opon as grey/black hat 'buying of links'?
Thank you
Sean
-
Keri, that link in your post is broken. I see it as:
http://../blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices
-
Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded the Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory updates and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices
-
Yeah I just feel like if SEO people put half the effort they put into tricking Google, into doing SEO the right way and creating value that they could have one hell of an SEO product.
What you are essentially looking to do is create web spam.
It seems like a lot of effort for something that may work for a whille but will almost surely be figured out eventually and doesn't bring any value to your clients.
-
Cheers for reply Roger.
-
You should put that in a new question and I'll bet it would get more eyes on it.
I've seen it done a lot but not sure as to how effective it is. I would think its pretty easy for google to figure out. Especially if they are all new domains registered to you and hosted on one c block or even the same IP address.
I think to do it where it wouldnt raise obvious flags would be expensive and you are still just getting links from new sites with little/no authority so not sure its worth it.
My guess is Google would figure it out anyway.
-
Roger
Thanks for that advice.
I just downloaded quite a good whitepaper from http://www.fastdirectorysubmitter.com/ which seems makes sense to me. Any of you have used this site or similar?
Thanks
Sean
-
Not a chance its worth 50-100.
-
I never pay directories for inclusion, nor do I pay people to do directory submission for me (unless you're just trying to get into 1000 low-value spam directories, it's not worth it). You need to do it yourself so you get the categorization of your site's listing correct (each directory is a little different) and optimize/maximize the characters that each one gives you to write a description of your site (and/or add tags/keywords). It's a high-touch operation for human-moderated directories that are actually valuable.
-
Mike
Thanks for taking the time to give your advice. I think you make good points.
One last thought is; Is it worth paying 50-100 $ pa?
Thanks
Sean
-
Directory submission is a background task and subject to time management constraints and other things you need to get done. I would do all of the relevant non-weak directories first. Then, when you have time, get around to the relevant weak directories. Every do-follow inbound link you get has some value. Especially if it's on a different C-class IP address, or from a trusted source (human moderated directory). I wouldn't obsess about directory submissions, but I would put it on the list of things to do for when you have a few minutes (do a few per day or else you'll get burned out on it if you do them all at once).
As for UK vs non-UK, it may help you to have some .uk directories but regular old .com directories should help, too.
-
Thanks Mike The seomoz contains 180 directories with some of them towards bottom of list described as weak? Why have they listed these weak links? Also, as I am in the UK a) Should it make much difference as to which directories I use? b) As I am hoping to optimise for google.co.uk in the main, is there a different approach I should take due to my location? Sean
-
SEOmoz maintains a list of directories here: http://www.seomoz.org/directories
-
Roger
Thanks for reply. That makes sense.
I will take a look at these links.
Sean
-
Hi Sean,
I guess I am being a little black and white there. I would try and get listed in any directories that your competitors are listed in that show authority in OSE. It may or may not do you any good but it wont hurt.
Here is Yahoo Directory, submit link.
https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/
I guess what I am saying is that I would limit my time submitting to directories and try to use that time doing something that ads value, like participating in a community. It will pay you back way more than just pure SEO value and directories just aren't a good use of time or money in any large quantity.
Also check these links out for more info (the fact that SEOmoz has not dedicated ANY resources to updating this list or really discussing directories at all since 2008 is a good indicator of what they think of directories.)
-
Roger
Thanks for you reply. The main reason I ask is that when I use Seomoz Open Site Explorer they list some of the most important links of my competitors as some directories. Our site is as you suggest almost devoid of links. I have submitted to dmoz and I assume that is just a waiting game. How do you get listed with Yahoo sites you mention?
-
If you can get into dmoz (impossible? maybe) and Yahoo sites they are worth while. Unless you are just have absolutely no links I think directories are pretty useless anymore.
If you are looking for quick easy links, maybe spend some time in some forums answering questions related to your business. you get a signature link (for what it's worth) and if you add value as a contributer, you can see some REAL referral traffic.
I would not pay for many directories.
Find some good communities and participate.
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
-
Strategy for Local Site
Hi everyone I am working in a Media Agency in Los Angeles and we have to locally rank this site to get leads. Arts by Yaseen https://artsbyyaseen.agency/ We are strictly going for whitehat SEO. Can experts here give me an strategy to rank this site on top results? Thank You
Link Building | | jack4920 -
Links between own sites cause bad pagerank?
Many people say PR does not matter, but for me its an indicator that links from a domain with higher PR may rank better. My client has a about 4 different travel-sites of very different kinds of travelling. His sites are not ranking bad but all sites have just a PR 0-2 although the content is unique. I made the experience that even sites with few content will have at least a PR of 3 after some years with no SEO effort. One reason is may some part of duplicate content (4 Tours begin in Manaus, so the description for Manaus is on all the 4 Tour pages the same) but another is that the pages have few external links but many of other sites he is owning... like: also check out this -> link to another own site. Question: If I take all these links away (they even don't cause many referrals at all) - will this have a positive effect on rankings? Means trying to have always more external links from not self owned sites is a good start? Thanks for sharing your experiences Holger
Link Building | | inlinear0 -
Old Site not Passing Along Links?
Recently, we created a new website for a client, and put it on a new domain. We put a 301 redirect site-wide on the old site. The 301 is working correctly, and any visit to the old site is now going to the new one. So, from a functionality standpoint, we're looking good. However, looking at the domain authority of the sites, it doesn't seem that the old links are passing value to the new site. The old site had 43 linking root domains, and a domain authority of 30, compared to the new site with 16 linking root domains and an authority of 22. If I understand correctly, the links should be viewed as pointing to the new site and passing link juice to the new one, correct? Is there a reason why this may be happening that I should be looking into? Any thoughts or advice on this one would be appreciated. Thanks guys!
Link Building | | DeliaAssociates0 -
Shopping comparison sites for ecommerce Seo
Does anyone use shopping comparison sites to drive traffic to an ecommerce site? If so does that improve your organic ranking or result in the first page being dominated by comparison sites?
Link Building | | DavidLenehan0 -
What are the best article sites to submit to?
Can you submit to more than one? or do they detect that the article has already been posted on another site? Which sites do you usually use for posting articles? Thanks, Storwell
Link Building | | adriandg0 -
What is the best directory submission management software?
My website domain authority is 25, and my home page authority is 20. I have a lot of directory submission and link building to do. I have a spreadsheet of more than 700 directories to submit tio What is the best directory submission and link building software to help me manage this?
Link Building | | paulcj20 -
Suspicious Link Directory
I found a link directory with good PageRank and MozRank. The page I would be featured on has good page authority of about 41. Their editorial guidelines appear sound. However, I just discovered that they have a family of directories (about 7-8) that all look very similar in site appearance. I suspect that they are all hosted on the same servers and run by the same company. Would this family of directories be at risk of being flagged by Google as a link network and have all their links devalued? Thanks Mozzers!
Link Building | | SparkplugDigital0 -
Site size affecting page rank?
I've noticed the sites that rank above me for certain phrases are much larger than I am. Here are the results of the 'site:' command for the top 6 results for a phrase I want to rank for (yes, I know that 'site' is not exact): 32,600 pages 8,760,000 pages (wikipedia) 684 pages 148 pages (domain name equal to search phrase) 1400 pages 120 pages (my site) Now, I appreciate that larger sites have more stuff to link to, and therefore have more juice flowing to them from external links. BUT, is it also true that they are generating lots of internal juice by having so many pages? I've looked at the PageRank algorithm and understand that the max page rank for a site (with no external links) is based on the number of pages of that site and how well linked they are). My question is: based on all the experts here, is number of pages in the site an important factor (assuming good on-page SEO), or does it really come down to number of external links (from relevant sites with appropriate anchor text, of course)? Can a small site with tons of external links rank above much larger sites? Has anyone beaten Wikipedia for a phrase they were targeting? How did you do it? Thanks!
Link Building | | scanlin0