Are links from directories still good practice?
-
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!
-
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!!!
-
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.
-
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.
-
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.
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
-
Does using non-https links (not pages) impact or penalise the website rankings?
Hi community, We have couple of pages where we we have given non-https (http) hyperlinks by mistake. They will redirect to http links anyway. Does using these http links on page hurt any rankings? Thansk
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Is good for SEO update blog post dates after update post content
Hello I am updating some posts of my Blog, adding new and fresh content and rewriting some of the existing. After doing that I am thinking to update de post publishing so that I appears on front page of the blog and user can read ir again. But I don't know if it is good for google to change the publishing date of the post that he had indexed 5 years ago. Also I don't know if google will read it again if it is old and see the new changes in order to improve it in search results
Algorithm Updates | | maestrosonrisas0 -
Are we confusing Google with our internal linking?
Hi all, We decided to give importance to one of our top pages as it has "keyword" in it's slug like website.com/keyword. So we internally linked even from different sub-domain pages more than homepage to rank for that "keyword". But this page didn't show up in Google results for that "keyword"; neither homepage, but our login page is ranking. We wonder why login page is ranking. Has our internal linking plan confused Google to ignore homepage to rank for that primary keyword? And generally do we need to internally link homepage more than anyother page? Thanks
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Do more internal links from sub-domains to domain (website) hurt rankings?
Hi, We have nearly 10 sub-domains. Couple of our website top pages including homepage have been linked from every page of these sub-domains; from footer or top menu. Is this kind of linking is bad as per Google? What is the right way of linking between website and sub-domains?
Algorithm Updates | | vtmoz0 -
Has anyone used Capterra and will I get penalized for paid links?
Hello - I'm contemplating buying a directory listing on the software promotion website http://www.capterra.com/ . It's a site that gets quite a bit of traffic for people searching for software products and I was interested in promoting my software product there, but I don't want to ruin our very good standing with Google at this time if Google deems Capterra as selling paid links. I'm not interested in this for links but instead as a good source of referral traffic for my software site. If anyone has used Capterra or has advice on whether Capterra might injure my SERP rankings, I would appreciate it. Thanks, Jeff
Algorithm Updates | | DenverDude0070 -
Has Google lost its mind? I am the only link in every SERP for a query?
I run a small online debutante dress store and have been doing some onsite seo recently. Anyways, when I search for the search query "deb dress style guide" my site is the only search result for the first three pages of Google Australia (my target market). Just endless links to my site. I have competitors in my niche who all have websites worthy of listing in the SERP as shown when you google "deb dresses". Can anyone explain whats going on?
Algorithm Updates | | mydebdress20 -
How important are links after Panda
I have noticed that the sites in my niche that were at the top of the SERP's are still at the top of the SERP's after panda. I have also heard people theorizing that links are no longer important, its now all about bounce rates, time on site, etc. Is there any consensus about how important links are after Panda? thx Paul
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes1 -
Any way to tell if a link has been devalued?
I have some listings in lawyer directories some of which have very hig PR , links, traffic, etc. For example, www.nolo.com, I know that Google has more or less recently devalued a lot of directory links. I would assume that a monster site like nolo would not be one of those, but does anyone know any way to tell? Paul
Algorithm Updates | | diogenes0