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
-
Paid Directory Value
Hi All! Recently we scaled back the number of paid directories that we use for our clients, mainly due to them being devalued. To select which directories made the cut, we looked at things like Domain Authority, Page Rank, and Trust; all of the things you're supposed to be looking for in a quality link. We even used the list of directories here on SEOmoz as a reference. Two of the directories we use are Yahoo and BOTW, both of which seem to draw the ire of many professionals here. Is there something I'm missing? If these directories have solid numbers, why such backlash towards them? I appreciate any insight you can give me! Frank
Link Building | | FrankSweeney0 -
My Question : why site explorer not showing yahoo directory link
why site explorer not showing yahoo directory link i have tried many different sites which listed in yahoo directory but site explorer not showing ?
Link Building | | amreen8470 -
Targeting high Page Authority sites vs high Pagerank sites for backlinks?
For many years I've been working on seo/backlinks for my website. When doing analysis in opensiteexplorer I notice that the highest listed backlinks for my site are sites with high page authority and domain authority, rather than pagerank. For example one of the highest backlinks for my website has page authority/domain authority of 72/96 but the site itself is only a PR2, while my other backlinks have PR4, 5, or 6 with lower page authority. For a while I've been trying to partner with websites for backlinks from high pagerank sites, as I've always believed this is the #1 metric in relaying link juice. But OSE's metrics seem to not follow that train of thought -- it believes page authority/domain authority is a more important measure. Is it? Should I change my strategy to try to partner with websites that have high page authority rather than focusing so much on pagerank?
Link Building | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0 -
Open Site Explorer
Typically when using Open Site Explorer to analyze links, how long does it take for them to show up? I have some links that are on high page ranking sites, yet they still do not show up with the Open Site Explorer. Thank you
Link Building | | TP_Marketing0 -
Why Google is not getting many of the links to my site?
Hello, I have a website for cosmetics, selling and a lot of information (http://www.vipcosmetica.com). For about half a year I've been working also in seo for several google keywords. My question is about the external links to my site. Using different tools, including those of SEOMoz, I see just a few links to my site, however there are plenty, because I've been putting them myself, in public directories, related blogs, industry websites and so on. Alexa shows 5 links only, OpenSiteExplorer shows 4, and Market Samurai 9. I thinks theres should be like 50-60 links, minimum, in pages with good google PR (Youtube, Vimeo, Vulka, Hotfrog, Digg, Flickr, etc.). In Alexa, recently two more links appeared, from two blogs that have copied some content from my site (priveta policy) without changing the original links that point to other pages on my site, and those are the links that Alexa shows now. What could be the reason the rest of the links do not appear at all? Thank you very much
Link Building | | MadridOriflame0 -
Yahoo Directory Question
I'm working on building some links for a used car store and thinking about submitting a site to the Yahoo Directory. The page that I want to rank for this category is not the homepage of the site (as the store also sells new vehicles), so I'm curious if anyone knows if I can submit a specific page instead? If not, how does the idea sound of creating a separate domain that 301 redirects to my page of choice and submit that to the directory? EDIT: Found this in the Yahoo TOS: "The site may not appear in the Directory under a different URL." "The site must not be dedicated to directing the user to another page." Hm. Any ideas? Should I just submit the homepage?
Link Building | | kylesuss0 -
Advice for brand new site
Dear All I have been an SEO for several years now, and have just laucnhed a new site www.householdsaver.co.uk its in its early stages as I expect to add a community option where people post deals and offers they have found, share them with friends etc My question is really are all the old seo practices still worth doing? Things like directory sites, blog comments, articles sites, social bookmarking etc.... (I have already built up twitter users on the account before the site went live) With Moz's trust factor is it best to go for highrank trust sites first or... I guess you could say that I am suffering from what do I do first and is it all still worth doing and what are the early pit falls to think about..? ie too many links too soon and from to high or to low trusted sites? Any comments from anyone who have put a new site live in the past couple of years would be appricated. Thanks James
Link Building | | JamesT2 -
So I ran into a site that was not ranking 4 days ago and has over 2 million links to it on some keywords. My guess is this is a link bomb, but the issue is this is pushing one of my sites down. Does anyone know a good way to over come a bomb like this?
So I ran http://www.riogrande.com/ into this site not that long ago and wanted to see if any other SEO's have an opinion on it. I've seen a Google bomb before, but the amount of links going into this URL is insane. The thing is how does one over come a Google Bomb? Do you just wait to see what Google does or do you just hope to rank under that URL? I should also note that it appears that all the keywords to it are relevant to the sites content. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks
Link Building | | kateG12980