Are links from directories still good practice?

[cschwartzel]

Ok, so I am new at "link building"....which of course I have read furiously on how that philosophy is changed, it's a goal, not so much a process. I am focusing on great content, social sharing, etc.

BUT, I see competitors still getting links from some of the directories that I have found listed on Moz as being "good" directories to list in. For example, yelllow pages, manta, ibegin, hot frog, etc.

Do I have the terminology totally twisted here? Is it still good practice to get a couple links from these directories. Or is this practice completely the wrong thing to do post Panda & Penquin.

Thanks guys!

[cschwartzel]

Thank you so much! These are exactly the "layman's  terms" answers I needed. Seems like I was on the right track by your responses. Gotta love this Q&A Forum. Saved me a couple times now

Thanks!!!

[masdigitalmedia]

I agree with the comment above.  I think your priorities and focus for content and social sharing are key to your long-term success.  Authorized directories are still essential (for now).  So DMOZ and the quality directories will be helpful to supplement your long-term goals.  Some of the business directories set the links as a nofollow, so you want to research that.  Hope that helps.

[AppointmentPlus]

Hey Courtney,

Local directories are still valuable, however there is a difference between **local listings and directories. **

There are thousands of directories out there that hold no value for your website For example, http://www.freedirectory-list.com/free-directory-list.php check out all the directories listed on this site.

Instead of submitting your site to all of those directories, check out local listings such as yelp, yellowpages, google places, bing local, Yahoo's directory, superpages, citysearch.

[matbennett]

It might be helpful to think more in terms of what a link actually offers rather than what format it takes.  If there is a website that people use to find organisations like yours then it makes sense to be there whether that website is in directory format, blog format or any other format.  If a website has no apparent value in itself move on.

The problems with directories really came about from two issues:

1. Directories that only existed in order to link to websites.  
There are still thousands of sites with names like seolinksbymat.com that quite clearly are only ever used to get links. Why should being listed there demonstrate any authority/validation for a site?

2. People went a bit mad for it
People love shortcuts. When presented with the opportunity to either work hard to get valid links or just submit them to directories lots of people did the latter. Before long services appeared that submitted your site to thousands of them, which i turn caused more directories to be created.  Big old mess and Google got bored of it.

Avoid those two things and actually there is nothing wrong with a link from a website that happens to be in directory format.  If those links are just a small part of a bigger picture and come from sites that have inherent value then you shouldn't be scared of them.

The SEO industry loves to see things as black and white. It's easy, it's lazy and it is wrong. Everything is bad when it is done badly.  Directories are very easy to do badly, but you should never be worried about getting a link from something like Yellow pages.