Is business related directory paid links OK for SEO?

[honkwok]

I heard paid links are not good.

My business is wedding related e-commerce.  There are some wedding directory site out there and I need to paid them in order to put my links there.  Are these directory links also count as paid links?  Is it bad for SEO?  I saw some popular wedding sites put their sites there too.

BTW, is Yahoo , botw or business.com directory treated as paid link?

Thanks,

Hon

[Debdulal]

First of all by getting your website listed in some Paid directories, you are just making your website more vulnerable to Penguin as the process violates Google’s guidelines. However, what I believe is that if you are getting your website in some chosen directories like Yahoo Directories etc, you may not be in trouble as Google is well aware of their existence.

So, rather than wasting your SEO dollars on things so uncertain, I would suggest you to do something more fruitful like investing in content marketing, designing create inforgraphic and then using it as a link bait.

However, if you wish to do it as a promotional purpose, you can go ahead; just make sure that you are adding no follow attribute against them.

_Hope that helps. _

[Personnel_Concept]

no worries !

[honkwok]

thanks for your comment

[kadesmith]

The best answer for this question in my opinion is to ask yourself, "Would I pay to be listed in this directory if search engines did not exist?"  It is not always bad to be listed in a directory if it will drive traffic.  This does not mean it will help nor hurt you in Google though either.

Yahoo, BOTW, etc are considered "white hat" paid links.

[Personnel_Concept]

I would say its very tricky situation because in one way it is paid link, but some of the directories are really of high quality, you can check moztrust, Page Authority and Domain Authority through mozbar tool.

If authority is good and as you said its in your similar field so should be ok I guess.