Paid links from directory listing and business listing sites are good or bad according to Penguin 2.1 update?

[zco_seo]

Hi Friends,

Recently on October 4^th, 2013, a new spam filtering algorithm got live named Penguin 21. / Penguin 5.

The update goes after sites that may have purchased paid links.

I would like to know is it safe, if we submit website details with links in paid directories, eg: https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/ (yahoo directory) and quality business listing sites provided the categories are related to our website.

Our competitor sites having the backlinks from those kind of directories and they are performing (ranking) well in major search engines.

May I know how Google treat these kinds of links according to this recent algorithm update?

[zco_seo]

Thanks for your reply.

I have one more doubt. If I am going to get links from say 10-20 links from paid web directories/ business listing sites which is of high PR (pr 5 and above) and quality sites, will it affect my website ranking?

eg: http://www.rddesignlondon.co.uk/best-paid-directories-for-seo/

http://www.seotechnocrat.com/directory-submission-sites/

http://tradeport.org/tradeblog/?p=22

[ZDAdmin]

This is a complicated question because there's a sliding scale of directories out there. On a scale of 1 to 10, with one being 'getting you penalized' and 10 being 'increasing your rankings', I would put the Yahoo directory (the $299/yr one) at an 8 or so.

The yahoo directory is a rare example of a directory that is of value despite it being paid but for the most part I would steer clear of paid inclusion directories unless they have a true logical value, i.e. customers going to the directory to legitimately find a web site or business.