Are web directories worth the effort?

[JasonHegarty]

I'm looking to see what sites my competitors are linked from via the open site explorer and all I see are web directories and when I visit these sites it seems they want you to part with $20 in exchange for a link.

It obviously works as the sites I am researching are on page one for the keyword I am targeting.

For example

Site 1

• Has 18,222 followed links and 1,089 no followed links
• Has 243 linking root domains and 17 NoFollowed linking root domains

Site 2 & 3 are very similar

My site is only 2 months old and has 85 followed, 10 NoFollowed and 4 linking root domains and 3 NoFollowed.

My domain Authority is 15 my 3 competitors I'm tracking are between 30 and 45.

In spite of this huge gulf I still rank half way up page two!

I'd be really grateful if someone could explain to me what the followed links, NoFollewed links etc all means and also the opinion on getting links from web directories.

Thanks for your time - Jay

[JasonHegarty]

Thanks guys for the really in depth responses.

As a novice the feedback is very much appreciated. I've been concentrating on getting what I consider to be high quality links from relevant sites to my business and I think it has had a big impact but am keen to learn other ways I can increase my ranking from on page seo -

The term I'm targeting in the UK is independent mortgage advice and my site is at www.keystonemortgages.co.uk

If anyone has time to have a quick glance and inform me of any glaring mistakes I'd be eternally grateful!

Thanks again

Jay

[AlanBleiweiss]

thanks EGOL.  I'm just in a near panic - getting close to that "guru" label in mozPoints. So I need to find a way to get them to let me keep the "authority" label if/when I cross that threshold

[EGOL]

Enjoyed this answer, Alan.  Thanks!

[RyanKent]

Some outstanding replies shared by Alan and Ross.

[rtavs]

Hi Jay,

I agree with Alan on this one. There are so many factors effecting how you rank that simply counting up the links is not the way to do it.

The best way to go about your online marketing practices is to take a more holistic approach and start looking at metrics that matter more to your bottom line. Lets have a look at the traffic trends and the top reffering keywords to your site.

Plugin webmaster tools to your analytics and take the average rank data fir the top keywords and create a customer report to show you what keywords are the highest converting and spend more time and effort cultivating a search engine friendly environment targeting those keywords.

Look at the conversion rate of your site and think of ways to increase it through adding different elements like Testimonials or video content.

To answer your question more directly: yes getting links from directories do work to an extent just like any link building activity will work to an extent but like Alan said it is all relative. The is no way to answer the question directly as there are so many factors involved in how your page ranks in the SERPs.

Hope this helps.

[AlanBleiweiss]

Jay,

There are hundreds of factors in SEO.  Each of those cross-relate to each other, to make tens of thousands of sub-factors.  Just because competitors appear to get links from paid directories does not itself mean that's how they got higher domain authority, ranking, or anything else.  This is a great example of a common phrase in our industry - "correlation does not equal causation".

So essentially, there could be many other factors involved you're not mentioning, and that I assume you're not necessarily considering as truly important.

How many pages does each of those sites have? How well optimized are each individual page, each section of each of those sites?  What is the depth quality of content on any individual page, or section of those sites?  How well do those sites convey topical relevance to a specific search phrase compared to your site?  What social signals do those sites have that you don't?  What is the quality of those?

What does the rest of the inbound link profile look like for those sites?

The list goes on an on.

So - to answer your broader question - are web directories worth the effort?  They may be.  Are those directories relevant to the topical focus of your site? Are they relevant to the market you are trying to reach for your site?  Are they trust-worthy directories that are less likely to be flagged by Google as link farms?

These are the kind of questions you need to be asking to see if they're worth investing in.  Yet only after you consider all of the issues I described above, and see where you can improve any of the factors I described as relate to your own site.