Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Link Building
    4. Directory Listings no longer counted in Backlinks?

    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?

    Link Building
    3
    4
    1838
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Excal
      Excal last edited by

      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.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • TheSymmetran
        TheSymmetran last edited by

        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...

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
        • Excal
          Excal @becole last edited by

          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 😉

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • becole
            becole last edited by

            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.

            Excal 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 3
            • 1 / 1
            • First post
              Last post

            Got a burning SEO question?

            Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


            Start my free trial


            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.

            • See all categories

            Related Questions

            • kitoks

              DMOZ Directory Impact on Rankings

              For about 5-10 years ago many SEOers said that it is in particular important to be in Dmoz. What about nowadays?
              Moreover is it still working and accepting new projects. I suggested several of my projects but no news from them

              Link Building | | kitoks
              0
            • seocoza

              What count as irrelevant links?

              I recently had a link audit done for a client selling mechanical parts. This client supplies to the mining and construction industries. The link audit showed all links on mining or construction sites as irrelevant. When I questioned about it, they explained that my client is in the mechanical parts industry and therefor Google would penalize me as those count as irrelevant links. I don't agree, but need an expert opinion. Can anyone help?

              Link Building | | seocoza
              0
            • vende12345

              How to get BackLinks?

              What is the best site to get backlinks ? Not for free, i mean a paid premium services . I think i need backlinks for the authority of my sites. My sites are indexed, but when i search for different keywords on google, i find them on page 5-7 . I need to see them on page 1-2 . But my site's authority  is : 1 .

              Link Building | | vende12345
              0
            • SecJobs

              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 | | SecJobs
              0
            • DTOSI

              How do I remove bad web directory listings?

              I am starting SEO for an E commerce website. I guess like 1 year or two ago they had another SEO company working for them. After looking in Site explorer I realized that they have like 2000 links (almost all from website directories) that have the correct anchor text but are all in the wrong categories, and most from countries like china and india. Many of the Titles are even in Chinese. This company sells packaging supplies and they are in categories like real estate, animals, and so on. I am changing the domain name, so I guess any links to internal pages will be lost, however I have to forward the main domain to my new domain, so any links to the home page will still be there. Does anyone know how I can remove these links??

              Link Building | | DTOSI
              0
            • harrygardiner

              Which is the best directory submission service?

              Which is the best directory submission service out there? And which are the key directories to get your site listed in?

              Link Building | | harrygardiner
              0
            • BostonWright

              Building backlinks for a newspaper site?

              Anyone have tips on building links to a newspaper site? I am looking for a strategy to create links to a news site beyond building one link at a time. We have so much content that is constantly updated that it would be impossible to do this one page at a time.

              Link Building | | BostonWright
              0
            • vijayvasu

              Web directories

              is it any point anymore to build links from web directories. Does google consider web directories anymore? Thank you awesome Mozzers! Vijay

              Link Building | | vijayvasu
              0

            Get started with Moz Pro!

            Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

            Start my free trial
            Products
            • Moz Pro
            • Moz Local
            • Moz API
            • Moz Data
            • STAT
            • Product Updates
            Moz Solutions
            • SMB Solutions
            • Agency Solutions
            • Enterprise Solutions
            Free SEO Tools
            • Domain Authority Checker
            • Link Explorer
            • Keyword Explorer
            • Competitive Research
            • Brand Authority Checker
            • Local Citation Checker
            • MozBar Extension
            • MozCast
            Resources
            • Blog
            • SEO Learning Center
            • Help Hub
            • Beginner's Guide to SEO
            • How-to Guides
            • Moz Academy
            • API Docs
            About Moz
            • About
            • Team
            • Careers
            • Contact
            Why Moz
            • Case Studies
            • Testimonials
            Get Involved
            • Become an Affiliate
            • MozCon
            • Webinars
            • Practical Marketer Series
            • MozPod
            Connect with us

            Contact the Help team

            Join our newsletter
            Moz logo
            © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
            • Accessibility
            • Terms of Use
            • Privacy

            Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.