Has anyone ever used a specific page (instead of home page) when building links in directories?
-
Instead of the home page, have you ever done (domain)/page-1 for the URL in directories? I figured this would be a good way to build some page authority up for deeper pages for small businesses that can't seem to garner any attention with content / links.
BTW, these directories are not considered spam directories.
Thanks,
Cole
-
Max,
Let me try to clear up this "deep linking" question for you. First, I do not use the term deep linking and am not sure the entire goal of it. If you are going out trying to set up links in some way and direct them to specific pages, IMO you are going to a lot more trouble than it is likely worth today.
Your content should be able to get you links. If your "deep" pages have good content they will get links, Period. Here is an example and it is one that for us was really irrelevant content.
One of our people did a post and included something on 3-D printing. We do not own a 3-D printer, I would not know how to use one, etc. Yet, we got people linking to that. Another was about 18 months ago or so, we did it a post on responsive design. The post was done just to talk about responsive design. We did not send it out to people to get links, we did not submit it to article directories, etc. Yet, it is one of our most linked-to pages on our site. The reason seems to be due to the image and people wanting to use it. BUT, we did not set out to get links.I would worry a lot more about ensuring you are creating content regularly and that it is not just content for content's sake. Make it readable, interesting, engaging. If you are "deeplinking" whatever that practice is, you are trying to create links to specific pages and I just think that is a waste of time 99% of the time.
Best
-
I understand you point and it's also my main doubt, is it natural or not? And... Will google algorithm find it “natural” or not? Which is not necessarily the same thing.
I fact, from my personal perspective if I write an article which talks about a specific product, I find a link to that product page with additional info quite natural, linking to the home and expecting the reader to search for the product to read the additional info doesn't sound natural.
But so far these deeplinks didn't move the needle in term of ranking for those product pages, so I assume google algorithm doesn't find them “natural”.
Has anyone a similar experience to report?
-
It was more in reference to directories & deeplinking. You also have to look at it from a what looks natural point of view, its pretty common when you link to a website that you link to the homepage so if you have a site that has an equal amount of links throughout the site, does it still look normal? Generally though wouldn't say it was bad it was more in regards to deep linking with directories etc.
Might want to be careful with articles aka "gust posts" as there was some trouble around them not so long ago.
-
I had already read Robert answer.
I was not referring to directories submission.
I was wondering why is a tricky line to deep link in general. We have back link campaign in place, but doesn't involve directories. We publish a guest post a week on blogs and sites with at least Page Rank 2 and Domain Authority 25, we always post 500/1500 words articles related to our business and we diversify the backlinks using deeplinking to product pages, category pages, according to the article content.
And I was wondering if there some cons about deep linking that way, or in general, or in which specific cases.
-
It's a tricky line to walk - I mean that really you can go either side of Google's favor and whilst you might end up with the desired small boost you might also end up with a penalty. I recommend you check out Robert's answer below its very helpful.
-
Could you articulate some more the "its a tricky like to walk"?
This kind of deep linking is something I have still not understood, and your answer intrigued me. Can you explain better?
-
Thanks so much to all who responded.
Robert, your post was very insightful in how I approach businesses.
-
Cole,
I see a couple of red flags here that you may want to be aware of. You state: "I figured this would be a good way to build some page authority up for deeper pages for small businesses that can't seem to garner any attention with content / links."
From this and from your profile showing you working with an agency, this work appears to be client work. First suggestion is this: For any business you are doing SEO for, start with "While we would all like overnight results, SEO will not provide that. You must be patient or risk having your entire site disappear from the search engine results because you/we did things to expedite the process that the search engines consider negative. We understand that some of your competitors may do these "negative" things and they may get away with it for a while; but, as your agency of record we cannot put you in harm's way for the sake of having you rank quicker."
Can't seem to garner... with content/links. This is where you derail the issue in that you are trying to gain attention and I would assume that means rank improvement. You are wanting a directory to provide this "attention," and if the small business is a restaurant in Lafayette and the directory is Yelp, then you are probably going to be OK, and I would want a link to the menu page specifically.
While there is no list of bad directories per se, there are really only a few that are truly relevant to a given business IMO. The problem will arise in the number of "directories" you are using for this practice. The biggest negative will be around the link velocity for a given business. So, if your business has no links (attention) and two weeks from now you have put them on 30 directories no matter how great they are, you are creating a potential problem for them.
So, instead of "directories" I would suggest for your purposes you use some specific sources (I am only suggesting these as a substitute to what I fear may be less obvious directories.): BBB, Angie's List, YP, Yelp, CitySearch, etc.
Be very careful as well with any directories that you maintain some sense of control over the listing. There are directories that will put you in a sidebar, etc. in a paid listing and it generates a link from thousands of pages; you do not want this to happen to a client and it does.
I hope this helps you out, good luck,
Robert
-
There is no giant naughty list I'm afraid but the best advice i can give is as follows:
Will a user, find & use the directory?
if you think a user is going to find you through the directory (like yell.com etc.) then its a good link if you're just putting a link there for back link sake it's probably not as safe as you could be.
e.g. So if there is a local directory of all the best named companies called Pixel! and users are regularly using the listto find their favorite pixel company this would be good because the user is finding this link helpful but
if its a directory of all of the company on the internet - It's not so safe. Local directories (or very niche) tend to be a bit safer than most others too.
Hope that helps a bit more.
I think I found your site by accident the other day, small world!
-
Hi Cole
Yes, we use content page specifc URLs for any links we feel appropriate. Directories are not a highly thought of any more as a good SEO practice, as this became repositories for links links etc. This adds no real value to the user of potential user of a directory.
If the directory is something like Yel, we would want only parts of our site to link to their category heading where we are listed under. So we would not want our generic home page linking to a specific heading in Yel, as this is not useful to the end user, who would click the link and then have to start to search for what they really wanted.
Specific links at this level are liked by Google, because the link is 100% relevent to the user
Hope this helps
Bruce
-
Hey Pixel,
Nice name (I work for a company called Pixelbrush).
Are there documented articles or information out there on specific directories that Google does think is spammy?
Have you ever used directories to link to deep pages? For example, I would already use these directories to link to the home page.
Thanks,
-
What you are referring to is deep linking its normal as it helps build authority over a whole domain rather than just the homepage however its a tricky line to walk., Same for directories it can be a fine line, its not Whether you think they are spam directories its Whether Google thinks that and Whether you are willing to bet a penalty on it (or a competitors reporting you for having directories and again getting a penalty)
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
-
Should Medical Practices Build Citations For Each Practitioner?
I'm working with a medical practice that has 6 doctors in a single office location. We already have GMB pages for the practice as a whole as well as each practitioner. Should multi-practitioner businesses like medical practices build citations for each practitioner as well? For instance, should each doctor have a listing on YellowPages, Localeze, etc?
Local Listings | | formandfunctionagency1 -
Http or https for citations and link building
I'm wondering what version of my website I need to use on Google My Business and link building etc.. I have setup https and am using a 301 redirect for all http traffic. My question now is, do I need to go to all of my current citations/links and update them to https? I would think the citations/links in-place will hit the 301 and it won't matter what I set. Duplicate content isn't a problem since the canonical version of the page is https. I can't get a clear answer on the web and can't find anything on Google's site that suggests one way or the other. I'd just like to have some feedback from my fellow Moziopians 🙂 -fencepencil
Local Listings | | fencepencil1 -
New site links?
Hi all, Don't know whether this is new, or whether I'm very unobservant and just noticed, but certain results in the SERPs have started listing site links, more akin to Ads. So, if you google 'Department Stores London', you'll see the top listing 'Visit London' has four sitelinks underneath for Selfridges, Debenhams, Harrods and Fenwick. Is this markup? My website has sitelinks if you search for us, but if we appear in a generic list (like this search), then they disappear. Any ideas? Cheers, Rhys
Local Listings | | SwanseaMedicine0 -
Multiple language in site links on SERP
hi there guys! I have this client that sells roofing reparation. His site is in two languages. In this image here, the green square are the results in english and red square in french. The picture is from a english SERP. What would you guys do to make sure that the SERP shows the right language to users on Google? It is very important for us to have both language separated. Our region is bilingual so, it's a big problem! The original language of the site is in french and I don't have any problem with this version. But when i checked the english side, there is this problem... mixing language in the SERP is not very good for my ROI. Thanks guys! toiture2.png
Local Listings | | TonikSEO0 -
Home Page not Ranking on Local Community Sites
I am helping out with a couple of community sites and am seeing the same problem on both. They are small non-commercial local websites. One has 5 or 6 relevant links to the home page, and the title tag and content have been optimised for the name of the group and the location (and in any case the phrase is completely non-competitive). The other one has few links and isn't optimised. Both sites are fairly new. Both sites have the same problem in that when you search for the name of the group, it is not the home page that comes up but another page. My experience is mainly in the more competitive commercial arena, so I thought that these community sites would be simple! Can anyone point me in the right direction as to why this might be? No spammy links on either. These are community sites that are not particularly well maintained, but the phrases I am searching for are non-competitive. I have checked that the home pages are not no-indexed. Any tips much appreciated!
Local Listings | | Wagada0 -
Higher Value: Google Local Listing or .edu link?
A client of mine is putting together a partnership with a local university to offer a certain type of medical test through several of its clinics. They are writing up the contract now and asked me if there is anything they should ask for that would benefit us in our listings. Since we do not have an actual local footprint, my first inclination was to ask for them to help us get verified as owners of "practitioner" local listings at their business addresses (as discussed here). We would provide local numbers that would ring our call center. My thinking is that these listings and backlinks would benefit on searches similar to "medical testing in San Antonio". I have a number of concerns with this track but would love to hear from the community on why or why not this might be the way to go. Another potential option is to ask for a link from the university's website outlining the partnership. Something along the lines of "Our labs have partnered with BIZNAME to provide medical testing in San Antonio to our valued patients." I'd obviously love the EDU links, but I'm hesitant after Overstock's penalty a few years ago to try to set something like that up. I'm not sure which (if either) to ask for in the contract. I'm leaning toward the latter since it seems more in line with a long term strategy, and Google seems to change their treatment of the local listings pretty frequently. However, getting that high visibility real estate in the local listings is really appealing to me. What does everyone think?
Local Listings | | Andrew_Mac0 -
Do business citations (without links) on penalised website have a negative effect?
Hi there I've been doing some research into directory sites that my clients are listed on and noticed that some appear to have flat-lined in organic search traffic indicating a penalty. I would like to know if clients with business citations on these penalised websites (without links to clients websites) will be having a negative effect on SEO? Thanks
Local Listings | | Kerry_Jones0 -
Citation building for multiple locations
Hey everyone, I think i've got a good handle on citations, but had a question regarding multiple locations. I'm going to be doing citation building for a local lawyer, and he's got 4 locations. I'd like to build citations for each of his locations, but I was wondering if the business name needs to change? Ie. If I am building citations for Town 2 and Town 3, should the business name be listed as "Company Name Town 1" for the first location, and "Company Name Town 2" for the second? Or is it fine to use the company name throughout all citations, and just change the location/phone number to the location based info? I'm just worried about Google seeing differing info, but the same company name, and possibly penalizing me for it. Thanks in advance!
Local Listings | | RCDesign740