Rand Fishkin upsets directory owners?

[BFTUK]

For those of you who have'nt seen the latest White board friday, i suspect this may upset a few people in these parts.

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/whiteboar...ot-on-the-list

[an0n]

whatever....

to each his own

[silencer]

Depends how you look at it.

Rand is correct. A lot of directories have no value, especially from an SEO perspective.

The trick is gleaning the gold from the garbage

[BFTUK]

He is of course particulary targetting paid directory owners (mainly)..

[jhnrang]

I am not a Premium member there --so can't read the full review.
But IMHO - out of thousands of directories out there on the WWW Jungle -
only a handful stand out ( my directories are not among those select few as yet) --.

I have posted much the same on my blog - Relevancy of Web Directories

[Freewebspace]

he is very upset since I targeted him very much here and I had some valid points against page strength!

We should do some thing to keep the pagestrength out!

[silencer]

Originally Posted by Freewebspace

he is very upset since I targeted him very much here and I had some valid points against page strength!

We should do some thing to keep pagestrength out!

The tool had potential, as the factors/criteria when taken together are a good measure of a pages strength.

However, The lack of accuracy of the tool should be enough for anyone not to use it.

It's about as useful as a pagerank prediction. It's a gimmick. I don't think that on any 2 different visits I have been able to produce the same result for a single URL yet. A fluctuation been 3.5 and 7 for one page, on multiple different visits, to my way of thinking, isn't a useful way of ranking the strength of a page - no matter how much potential the tool purports to have.

[popotalk]

Rand Fishkin is partly right you know and its not about anger ramanean its his opinion. Its true that a lot of directories are worthless with no valid content nor end user information and owners spend little time adding informative sites instead. You can read some of it in my blog feed and hope to meet Matt Cutts too personally in August.

[kiviniar]

Some points are worthy of notice, but he forgot to mention that the aviva list is based on his PS.

[aspidov]

He upsets QBC's but not me for sure.

[jhnrang]

Originally Posted by popotalk

You can read some of it in my blog feed and hope to meet Matt Cutts too personally in August.

Maan -- when you meet Matt Cutts -- please recommend my directory to him and convery my request to review my directory personally.

Hopefully, pages like this on my directory ( Cricket ) will impress him and make my directory an Authority by first half of 2008

Now -- if you excuse me - I must hurry up and fill up all my categories as quickly as possible before your meeting with him in August. I'll need to quickly get a true professional design too.

[Freewebspace]

Originally Posted by popotalk

Rand Fishkin is partly right you know and its not about anger ramanean its his opinion. Its true that a lot of directories are worthless with no valid content nor end user information and owners spend little time adding informative sites instead. You can read some of it in my blog feed and hope to meet Matt Cutts too personally in August.

But is opinion is very much biased I think so!

As the web is expanding ... Search Engines need directories to help a site to index very quickly!

He has not mentioned it there ,he talks only about PR of Directories! and not about the quality of the links that a directory has! and the information that a directory renders to visitors and Search Engines!

[popotalk]

Originally Posted by Freewebspace

But is opinion is very much biased I think so!

As the web is expanding ... Search Engines need directories to help a site to index very quickly!

He has not mentioned it there ,he talks only about PR of Directories! and not about the quality of the links that a directory has! and the information that a directory renders to visitors and Search Engines!

LOL ramanean. Its like in your post your being biased. Like I said its his website. Whether he says he eats steak everyday while he is vegetarian we cant do anything.

@JohnRang
Hurry ! Hurry ! Before I submit my list.

[Freewebspace]

Originally Posted by popotalk

LOL ramanean. Its like in your post your being biased. Like I said its his website. Whether he says he eats steak everyday while he is vegetarian we cant do anything.

@JohnRang
Hurry ! Hurry ! Before I submit my list.

I am saying only about him and not about his website and at the end of the day

he can do any thing he likes! as it is his website!

[popotalk]

Originally Posted by Freewebspace

He has not mentioned it there ,he talks only about PR of Directories! and not about the quality of the links that a directory has!

Ok. Let me explain you this part. Look up some directories of your choice in the Top 50 Genre and let me know what QUALITY Listings do they have at Reference, Kids and Teens, News and Media, Education. Then try to go Business, Internet, Shopping. Do you think that that is a BALANCED Quality Links that a directory has ?

Originally Posted by Freewebspace

and the information that a directory renders to visitors and Search Engines!

What KIND of INFORMATION would some directories would offer when there are NON. I tell you if I need to read NEWS I will watch it live on TV or Newspaper or CNN online. There is nothing relevant for news feeds in there. People go to directories to find websites or list them but not read news.

[jl255]

he was doing alright until he got to the few points on why directories are not valuable:

- admits anyone (utter rubbish, do any of you guys admit anyone who pays? nonsense)
- general subject (so what? that is why there are categories in order for relevant links to be grouped together coupled with articles and descriptions. Doesn't mean that a general directory cannot provide quality relevant backlinks.)
- Few relevant inlinks (another rubbish. ever seen directories' links on business sites, webmastering sites, etc? these all provide EXTREMELY relevant inlinks to websites submitting to these directories)
- Not trusted domain (yah, and he didn't even bother to backup his argument for this one. So i suppose ONLY dmoz is a trusted domain? geez)

Pardon my obvious disdain. Just cannot stand the fact abt those who try to speak as though they know alot and misleading others. Then he tries to protect himself by saying that not all directories are useless when all the points he made attack all directories. Have some guts and say what you truly mean rather than playing it safe to include such a useless disclaimer

[centime]

The primary reason I would say the article is complete rubbish is,,

Directories are search tools,

They do not exist to provide Google ranking factors only

With time, and an understanding of the historical purpose of directories , which have been around since humans started doing business with writing materials, we will remin the search engines and the SEO pretenders what we are really about.

Then again, those of you who believe that link power is all a directory has to offer will probably take this pile off Kak seriously


Now I'm off to give something i haven't done b4

[britishguy]

Its interesting how people who spend all their time marketing, sometimes focus on a negative to create interest, and on other occasions focus on a positive or maybe an obtuse factor all to create buzz around their marketing techniques

Each to their own but all folks who fire flak around need to remember

"People Who Live In Glass Houses Should Not Throw Stones"
(don't criticize other people when you yourself have faults and weaknesses.)


PS I never bothered to read the link, as I assumed whether correctly or incorrectly that the content would not be worth opening the link to view

[jg123]

This week, Rand talks about directories and why so many of them have little to no value. Don't be mistaken though, there are still plenty out there that can be of serious help to a link building campaign.

That is all I read and I fully agree with it.

sometimes focus on a negative

Just like a local newscast that is what brings in the viewers and the main reason I don't read newspapers or watch TV news anymore.

[BFTUK]

Originally Posted by jl255

- admits anyone (utter rubbish, do any of you guys admit anyone who pays? nonsense)

I'm with you on this one, i get loads of submissions from people who do not meet the submission guidelines of my directory hence have their link refused and payment returned.

I do agree with Rand that there are certain directories out there who are in it solely to make some $'s and not give value, however i think he needed to emphasise that point and explain ways that people can check or measure the quality of directories for themselves.