Do links from a linkdirectory still matter

[iwebdevnl]

Hi everyone,

I'm checking out some competition for a webshop and i found a website which was quite high in Google for a searchterm, when checking it's backlinks why it was that high in google (His Content was rubbish, so it wasn't that).

I only found out that it has loads of linkdirectory links, does this mean it still matters these kind of links, or does it mean the competition is just rubbish?

Regards,

yannick

[KeriMorgret]

Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded the Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory updates and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices

[MBayes]

I wish we had a vocabulary that could differentiate between the link farm type directories, and the high quality directories. We still use high quality directories, and we use this thought process. If the directory is one we would want the client to be found on, no matter what effect it might have on the sites ranking,  and the other sites on the directory are decent quality, then of course we use it.

Local directories (if your client is a local type business) can be very strong.  News media sites are great if they offer a directory style listing (with or without follow links).

So high quality directories that are there to serve the purpose of making it easier for viewers to find good quality sites,  yes. Low link farm type directories that clearly exist for link purposes only- no.

This may not pan out to be a perfect SEO process ( Matt Cutts did say a link can not hurt you)  but we feel long term it is a better and safer process ( Matt didn't say that a bad link profile couldn't hurt you).

[blackballonline]

Depending on the nature of the site (business, cause, informational site, etc), our linkbuilding strategies vary widely. Go for quality no matter what. If the directory is quality and established why not? I'd research directories even closer now that Google has their eyes out but they are still viable.

[jmueller]

I would say that links from link-directories do still matter! It depends on the directory of course; good directories like dmoz certainly give a site some value whereas spammy directories can hurt your site. You can not say for sure - but a good way to find information on the directory is to see if it will rank for it's title or some copytext put into quotes and go from there. You might also want to check out to which other domains the page on directory links.

It's definitely a two edged sword but to put it short: they still matter.

[Theo-NL]

Link directories will probably still matter, some. That value it provides is depending on which directory, how old the link is, the anchor text etc. They haven't matter very much ever though, and after Panda even less.

If you run the URL through SEOmoz' latest toy 'Keyword difficulty' (http://www.seomoz.org/keyword-difficulty) you should get a pretty complete picture of why this page is ranking for that term.