A Straight Answer to Outsourcing Backlinking, Directory Submission and Social Bookmarking

[swzhai]

Hey SEOmoz Community!

I've spent a bit of time now reading about SEO in books as well as online here within the SEOmoz community. However, I've still struggled to find a straight answer to whether or not directory submissions to non-penalized websites is acceptable.I suspect the reason I haven't found a straight YES or NO answer is because it isn't so straightforward and I respect that.

My dilemma is as follows: I want to raise the domain authority for a few websites that I optimize for. I've submitted and gotten listed a bunch of excellent backlinks, however it still is a painfully slow process. My clients understandably want to see results faster, and because they have virtually no past outsourced link-building campaigns, I am beginning to think that I can invest some money for outsourcing directory submissions.

I see more and more people talking about the latest Penguin updates, and how many of these sites are now penalized. BUT, is there any harm to submitting to directories such as the ones on SEOmoz's spreadsheet that aren't penalized? My concern is that in the future these will be penalized anyways, and is there a chance then that my site will also be de-listed from Google? At what point does Google completely 'blacklist' your site from its engine? Furthermore, I don't understand how Google can penalize a website to the point of de-listing it, because what would prevent other competitors from sending mass spammy back-links to another?

What it all comes down to: At this point, are verified mass directory submissions through outsourcing still much more beneficial than detrimental to the ranking of a website?

Thanks SEOmoz community,

Sheldon

[swzhai]

Thanks EGOL

[EGOL]

I understand the content creation problem.  I have graduate degrees and decades of work experience in my topic area.   Content creation still is a laborious undertaking.

In the biotech and medical areas your writer needs a strong background in the content area.  Without that he/she will quickly be spotted as a noob by people who know their stuff.   This is long, careful writing that most people don't want to do.

[swzhai]

Hi EGOL,

Thanks for the response. I've been reading a lot of articles and your responses to them lately.

From my understanding, natural anchor text's often should be something like my websites domain, instead of the same repeated anchor text of, for example, "monoclonal antibodies". I read this in another article on how to recognize if your back-links are coming off as spammy. I concluded from this that I can have my virtual assistant only submit to directories or social bookmark with anchor text such as my domain name instead of repeated keywords.

As far as creating great content  goes, it is a huge concern of mine. However, a large percentage of my clients come from the high-tech biotechnology and medical industry. Even though I have thorough academic training in high-tech sciences, it still is incredibly difficult to create great content because of just how in-depth the scope of something like biotechnology and stem cell research goes. It's something I've certainly been working on though.

Thanks for the contribution EGOL,

Sheldon

[EGOL]

Anybody who says "yes" or "no" without further clarification is giving you a lazy answer.

Penguin problems can result from links on crap sites or links from great sites.   If you place lots of links with optimized anchor text on a lot of great websites you could still have problems.  Google knows by that artificial anchor text that you are trying to manipulate.

So, it is not only WHERE the links are placed but HOW the links are anchored that is important.

Honestly, the best way to get links is by publishing great content.  If you can do that the links will arrive naturally with zero work from you.   I do almost zero link building.  The anchor text for most of my links is a domain name or a URL or simple words like "here" or "this website" or "this article".

[swzhai]

Thanks Irving,

I suspected directory submission sites are no longer relevant due to the reasons you listed. However, when I go on my competitors sites with OSE and look at their backlinks, I can still see a large number of them rank incredibly well on competitive keywords with poor directory links...?

This is what prompted my question in the first place because it seems that there still is value to it. The big question is at what point does it become detrimental?

[irvingw]

I'll give you a direct answer. No. Directory submission sites are no longer relevant due to search engines, and they are seen by Google as nothing more than sites designed to sell links and pass PR.

Smart link builders stopped this activity years ago. There are only a small handful of directory sites like yahoo that are worth submitting. 99% of them are not.

If you find a directory site that is in your niche and nofollows your link then it might make sense to get listed as a possible traffic driver.

It takes a lot to get your site removed from Google index, the easiest way is to be hacked then your site gets banned until you remove those links.

What would most likely happen with directory submissions is that the keywords you are targeting get suppressed in the rankings, you go from page one to page 50 for example and your traffic drops. Google emilas you a letter in WMT saying they detected unnatural link building and then you spend all sorts of time trying to get your links removed and disavowing and resubmitting for reconsideration.

Directory sites are dead, if you're going to do link building it needs to be one offs to individual sites who have never sold links, not on sites who's sole business is to sell links.