Links from Directories
-
We are currently listed in a number of Association Buyer's Guides. We signed up for these last year in an effort to increase our external links. With recent Panda changes, do these links carry any value for us? Here are some examples:
http://buyersguideforeducators.com/
http://wasteindustrymarketplace.com/
We're in about 40-50 of these different directories.
Thanks,
Ben
-
The example directories you have given look pretty spammy to me. They all have the same design and look to have been made to make money rather than service a need. In the print world they would be the crap newspapers put through people's doors, left in supermarkets / shopping centres.
My advice would be to try to avoid these. Look for directories that provide a benefit to users and look to have unique content i.e. specific to niche or region.
-
Sorry for the blatant plug!
Would you believe it............I actually run a directory (www.semi-directory.com) that you might actually want ti be listed in (assuming you operate in the semiconductor / cleanroom industry).
Since the site was built by me (in Glasgow no less!), I specifically built it with SEO in mind. It is def no spammy as every new company listing is manually vetted. Get in touch if you want to know more and I can even show you some tricks to get more out of your free listing too.
-
For some niche keywords, link directories can work and have a positive effect, but you'd be best to avoid anything that seems spammy or thrown together.
The examples you've given are all suffering from the problem of having an excessive number of external links from a small number of domains. For example one has 30k links from just 22 domains. That suggests something fishy to me and probably would to Google.
You can use the seomoz toolbar to get some useful metrics on directories before you submit your site. As Wayne has said, also try and make sure the directories are relevant.
Another useful check is to check the pagerank for the directory. If it's a lot lower than the MozRank (as in seomoz toolbar) then you may deduce that the directory has suffered a penalty and you may be wise not to put your link there.
-
Hi Ben,
Some people will tell you that directories are not worth your time. I don't find that to be true in every instance. I think that listing yourself in a few of these industry-related directories (the most valuable and non-spammy ones) can not only yield minor influence in the engines, but more importantly it can serve as a great source for referrals, especially when it's in your niche market.
That said, if you're going to concern yourself with paid directories, I would make sure that you are listed in those like Yahoo and Best of the Web. I've seen positive influence from both of these directories, and they are trsuted by Google.
In whole, directories are not going to elevate your SEO campaign too terribly much.
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
-
What do you tell customers about outbound links?
Do you report outbound link profiles in an SEO audit? If so, what tools do you use to get outbound links? Moz doesn't seem to include this info in its crawl. What do you tell customers about the SEO value of outbound links? Thanks in advance for your SEO wisdom!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AndyKubrin0 -
How Do You Do Link Building??
I am starting to use the Moz pro tools like optimizing on page SEO for keywords and looking for opportunities. I know link building is a huge part for getting rankings on keywords in google search. Where do I start and how do I do the link building process for specific keywords I can rank for?? Thank you in advance for your help.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | wickerparadise1 -
Link Building Strategy?
If I use unique content written from writers & post it to good sites (free blogs, bookmarking, directory, articles sites, etc.) having nice good cache, good PR, different IP's do i still have a chance of get hit by Spam actions of google? Planning to do like just 30-50 a month all with unique content or say 1 unique content then re-written & used not more than 3 times. If not this then What else would you suggest? One more thing to add up, like i have 1000+ pages out of which i have like 80-90 pages that matters to me (important pages) then how do I spin the anchor text between all the pages. Should i spin them between 1000+ pages or use only 80-90 IMP pages. If the content is 300 words let say then how many anchor tags should i have?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | welcomecure0 -
Links from MOZ, Harmful?
I have listed my domain in several Ask the Community requests. These have resulted in links from the Ask the Community posts showing up in MOZ site explorer. So actual links have been detected. Are these links harmful to my link profile? The content is not at all related to commercial real estate which is the subject of our website. Thanks, Alan
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Any Effect From Little to no External Links?
The site I am working on has barely any links linking outwardly, being a fairly niche site it is hard to imagine many relevant places to link to. By not linking out, can this lead to problems in Google's eyes, I guess it would be good from the point of view of inward links & their dilution but is there anything related to looking strange on Google's link graph in this way?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | motiv80 -
PR links
Its seems that at lot of or competitors are using PR site to place articles with links. They are using the same article across many sites with the same anchor text link - But they seem to be doing very well in the rankings.... I have steered away from this type of linking as I assumed Google wouldn't be keen on this type of activity but I seem to be wrong.... Any views on this?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | jj34340 -
Should I link my similar sites together?
Hi I currently have two sites within exactly the same market. I've just purchased a third website from someone. Should I link these sites together? (i.e. in the page header should I cross link them or point two of them to the third?) If I do this will it harm them if they are on the same C-Class IP blocks? Is using private domains and different hosting companies considered dodgey in any way? Basically I'm a big wimp and don't want to do anything potentially that might potentially hurt my rankings;)
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Blendfish0 -
Are Facebook links really helpful?
If they are no follow, how can I benefit? If Google isn't using this data, than why would we bother to LIKE anyone or anybody?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEObleu.com0