Increase of Directory websites in SERPs
-
Has anyone noticed a bump for Directory style websites in SERP after the recent Panda/Penguin updates .
I am new to SEO but after monitoring one website in particular I have noticed that the site has dropped around 8 positions for location based queries and directory style sites such as yell.com, freeindex.co.uk, thompsonlocal.com all have seemed to moved up ever so slightly even above competior sites, which from memory were all below competior sites in previous search queries .
I wonder what your thoughts are on this, or its possible that my site in question has been affected and I need to carry out more work to improve its positions back to its original.
Your thoughts are welcome.
-
Yup I fully understand this, I belive that they are high authority sites with needed content and deserve high rankings.
I just found it weird that they were once spread out below the average 'Joe' website but now seem to be clumped together in their rightly deserved positions.
I find it entertaining trying to explain to client that it is near off impossible to rank in top 5 for <service><location>style queries while sites like this exist, the information I provide them just does not sink in.</location></service>
Thank you for your reply.
-
The directories you mentioned are regularly updated and are a real 'source' of information that people want to use. With the changes it hasn't killed directories, its gotten rid of spammy directories that are just there for links.
With the likes of Yell and Thompson these are big companies and websites and their directories both online and offline and great resources and so they should have good rankings as customers would go to them if they needed a directory based website.
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
-
Sub domains take away the pagerank/link juice of main website?
Hi all, I would like to know how sub domains will be collaborated with domain or main website in terms of authority, backlinks, link juice, etc...Link juice will be passed to sub domains from domain or vice versa? If there are large number of pages in sub domain, will that going to impact the ranking of main domain? Backlinks of sub domain are going to be a deciding factor for website ranking too? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Any risks involved in redirecting low quality Infringement website?
Hi all, Recently we have over taken one of the websites (with Trademark Infringement )who been using our domain name in their domain. That website got no traffic or backlinks. Is there any risk involved in redirecting that website to our website? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
One keyword gone in Google SERPs - Fred?
I have an ecommerce site. One keyword, which I use to rank #1 for on Google years ago, I'm now completely gone from the SERP's as of a couple weeks ago. I'm scratching my head here, my other keywords don't seem to have changed much recently. Around mid-March of this year, which seems to line up with the Fred update, I noticed I went from page 3 to middle of page 1 for a few days with this keyword. It was a very happy few days. Then it slipped down and down and hovered around page 6. But as of a couple weeks ago, it's now gone. Before the Fred update, I changed a bunch of product pages within the keyword category that had duplicate content because they were kits of items arranged different ways. So instead of repeating the individual item descriptions over and over in the different kits, I changed the descriptions on the kits to links to the individual items within the kits. After the Fred update, at the end of March, I set all these kit item pages that I reduced to very thin content with just links to noindex. My theory is that the Fred update reset algorithmic penalties for a couple days as it was being introduced. So the penalty of duplicate content that I may have had was lifted since I took out the duplicate content, and I made it back to page one. Then as Fred saw I now had a new penalty of thin content, I got hit and slid back down the rankings. Now that I updated the pages that had very thin content to be noindex, do you think I'll see a return of the keyword to a higher position? Or any other theories or suggestions? I remember seeing keywords disappear and come back stronger years ago, but haven't seen anything like this in a long time.
Algorithm Updates | | head_dunce0 -
All keywords increasing rank except URL Keyword, whats going on?
Hello, Our website is a private equity firm database, privateequityfirms.com. We rank well for a number of private equity definitions and terms and have been increasing rank in those terms but unfortunately we have been losing ranking in our main keyword and url "private equity firms" .We have ranked as high as 3rd under wikipedia. The only real changes we have made are too the sitemap that is auto generated every time some thing is changed in the database. Does anyone have any ideas what is going on? I have included a Image to help show the problem. Thank you! MozAnalyticsPDF115_zpsddec64fa.png
Algorithm Updates | | Nicktaylor10 -
What would be the right website hosting solution for a global brand with multiple TLDs?
Hello everyone, we are preparing a global we strategy for our customer, who wants to focus on many local markets. They are present with their products in over 60 countries on all continents and they can cover 7 languages easily. They also own the TLDs in each main country. Our priority is to be not only found in Google, but also in all major local search engines, which are popular in each country. Our main concerns with this strategy are: How do we host the website locally for each country, so local search engines recognize the website as a local website? Also, is it that important? Is cloud hosting the right solution for this? We would have different server locations for each TLD/language. Surrounding countries would at least get a fast connection and download rate, if the server is located nearby. If yes, can you recommend any companies doing cloud hosting? Is it also wise to additionally redirect the user to the local server based on his/her location? Is there a risk of duplicate content or being recognized as a link spamming site (for having links to each other from different domains of the same site, the content will be in different languages, though) just by using this solution? We would, of course, keep the content separated by domain to avoid duplicate content. Any comments and ideas would be highly appreciated. Thanks, Wojtek
Algorithm Updates | | webeeline0 -
Has anyone else noticed a major increase in Yelp, BBB, etc. results in local SERPs, pushing business websites further down?
Across multiple cities and markets, this seems to be a trend. "Chicago coffee shop" or "Minneapolis hair salon" or "Sacramento car repair" - outside the local 7-pack, virtually every result is Yelp, BBB, Yellowpages, etc. Is this related to algo changes, or simply a result of those national sites pumping major resources into SEO? It just seems to be suddenly far more prevalent than it was even 6 months ago.
Algorithm Updates | | kpclaypool1 -
What is considered duplicate content in an ecommerce website that offers the same product for retail and wholesale purchasing?
I have an ecommerce website that offers retail and wholesale products which are identical, of course with the exception of pricing. My concern is duplicate content. If the same product is offered under both the retail and wholesale category, and described identically, with the exception of price, metadata and a few words, is that considered duplicate content and would both pages be disregarded by the robots? Is it best to avoid the same description for that one product under the two separate categories? Thanks for all your help!
Algorithm Updates | | flaca0 -
Perfect Landing Page for jewelry website?
What would be the Perfect Landing Page for jewelry website? Show me some examples and tell me why do you think so. Thanks in advance to everyone who participated.
Algorithm Updates | | DiamondJewelryEmpire0