Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Directory Listings no longer counted in Backlinks?
-
Interesting situation when I looked at Google Search Console this morning, I found that back-links from directories had dropped off and am wondering if anyone else is seeing this?
Specifically, I am in Australia and had links from Yellowpages.com.au and Truelocal.com.au to my primary domain.
Interestingly, Yellow Pages had gone a bit crazy recently in that the number of links to my site seemed to balloon exponentially from about 50 when I first listed to 700+ to 1500+ to 1800+ and then the balloon popped. Truelocal in contrast was only ever showing the 1 link.
There have not been any changes from my end, and I only ever had one listing in these directories so not sure what generated all these extra links in Yellow Pages.
Anyone else in Australia noticed a sudden drop off in Google Backlinks from Directories? If not it may just be a temporary blip.
-
directory links are still a very much required part of the deal for major directories to say the least. Sure, a lot of them do not pass any link juice or Google may discount a lot of those links in its ranking factors, but you just want to be present where people actually check and where data aggregators grab their source data from.There has to be a reason why Moz local still is as service that charges people for exactly these "directory" listings...
-
Thanks Bernadette. True, I have noticed some movement in the past on other sites that I manage but these links have always been a constant on my site and it was just a bit of a heart-attack moment to see back-links drop from almost 1900 to 91.
Hopefully it settles over time and there is no impact to SERPS I guess we'll find out in due course
-
Excal, I've always looked considered the links that are shown in Google Search Console to be a "snippet" of all of the links to your website. For example, there are links that I know are pointing to our website that are good links--but they come and go in Google Search Console. They don't show us all the links. So, just as you have seen them go away, there's a good chance that they will come back and be listed again.
I do know that the more often you download the links the more often they will refresh the list of links.
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 iframe itself count as a backlink?
Our situation is similar to YouTube. We have an original content on every subpage that is genuinely useful when embedded as a widget on 3r party websites. That is why we offer an embeddable widget that shows slightly simplified version of the content - exactly like a YouTube video embedded on your blog. The embed code is simply an iframe sourcing from our subpage: <iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage"></p> </blockquote> <p>1/ Does the iframe itself pass any link value at all to the subpage?</p> <p>2/ If yes, what would be the equivalent of anchor text in iframe?</p> <p>3/ If not, will any link in the subpage pass link value from the 3rd party website to my domain/subpage?</p> <p>4/ If not, will I be punished/rewarded if I ask users to put a visible, unobfuscated link to the subpage below the iframe?</p> <blockquote style="background: #f7f7f7; padding-top: 5px; margin-left: 0px; padding-left: 2px; padding-bottom: 5px; white-space: nowrap; overflow-y: auto; font-family: monospace;"> <p><iframe src="wikibudgets.org/subpage" /><a href="wikibudgets.org/subpage">rich anchor text</a></p> </blockquote></iframe>
Link Building | | wikiBudgets0 -
Backlinks and PDFs
Hi, we are trying to improve on the number of links to our website. A supplier has added a PDF file which is case study to their website. In the PDF it has a link to our website, will this count as a link or not? Thanks
Link Building | | danieldunn100 -
Does this count as a backlink to my category page?
I am ranking high with a certain category page and I am reading that I need backlinks to that page. It is going to be a challenge to get a backlink to that specific category page but how about this? Category page URL: www.mysite.com/category/name Backlink to this URL: www.mysite.com/category/name/specific-blog-post (EDIT: Apparently these types of links don't exist! I went into the category page and clicked on a blog post and it just gave me the www.mysite.com/blah-blah-blah) Will that count as a backlink to the category page? Right now I am only getting backlinks to these blog posts: www.mysite.com/this-is-a-blog-post Any help appreciated! EDIT: Well I guess now my question is worthless. But if you have any input, it would be appreciated.
Link Building | | dealblogger0 -
Ways to remove spammy backlinks
Hello everyone, I got hit with an algorithm penalty and need to start removing old backlinks ASAP. Does anyone have any good resources on how best to ask webmasters for removal? Are there any other ways to remove bad back links besides the disavow tool? (An SEO consultant I talked to said that they had a proprietary software that can remove them - is that possible?) Thanks all,
Link Building | | CleanEdisonInc1 -
Top 20 sites for backlinking
My security jobs website was doing very well in Search engines until the penguin got hold of me. I don't profess to be at pro at SEO however seem to have a knack of getting sites to rank well. I think I made some basic mistakes with the original security jobs website, to many links to soon, so I have started again and will build up slowly the backlinks quality rather than quantity this time. My questions is what are the top 20 or so sites that are good to backlink from?
Link Building | | SecJobs0 -
Changing backlinks anchor text
Hi, I've read a few blog post here that suggests the strength of building links using your brand as an anchor text. This supposedly gives the site authority. Currently a chunck of the back links to my homepage are on generic terms i'm trying to rank for which doesn't seem to be working very well. I was thinking of contacting the various webmasters to change the anchor text to that of the site brand name but wondering if this will signal a manipulation of links to the search engines and potentially could be flagged as paid links? Has anybody done this before and what is the danger of doing this? Thanks Duke
Link Building | | clickangel0 -
List of High Ranking Directories
Hi, Does anyone have a list of high ranking free or almost free directories that have high search engine rankings and have an opportunity for a link or links for a personal development site in the USA? The directories should have the following qualities: Old Site Age A lot of unique content (or as much as a directory can have) A clean site Plenty of Backlinks going to it Facebook followers (if possible, though this might be stretching it) high search engine rankings I think you get the general idea. I'm looking for directories that are high ranking and in for the long haul. They don't have to be free, but it's best if it's inexpensive. Thanks!
Link Building | | BobGW0 -
What are the best paid directories today?
Looking to do some paid directory submissions and was wondering if a) they were still worth the money and b) if you have $500-$1,000 what paid directories would you submit too? I am assuming that BOTW is still on the list, but I rarely every see a BOTW link in any backlink report. Are they still relevant or are they more a sign of quality to the engines rather than an actual link? Same with JoeAnt
Link Building | | BraveheartDesign0