well the thing is, if you optimise for google, it is what the rest of the se's are trying to be, so you know that if it works for the leader, then it should work for the others.... but why optimise for someone with less then 20% market share when you can go for someone with 70% ?
Yeah true but then again Yahoo and MSN still do have a fair share in the market.. Alexa still ranks Yahoo higher than Google which is highly debatable but then again a lot of people depend on Alex for all kinds of information gathering. Also, it would be interesting to know if Google penalizes you for directory back links?
For the folks who asked why he didn't post the full article here, if you read some of the stuff he references you will know why he didnt post it all here. Makes perfect sense Good Job!
Thank you for the comments everyone @flashgordonweb - many argue that directory listings are worthless - but it's still a gray area to discuss. I would invest more time in other marketing tactics and once a month is not bad at all. I might push back down to such intervals myself @joeventura - Thank you for your understanding and kind words
Thats true, its still debatable You can spam your links and advertisements all over the net and google will care less, it all depends actually. You get lucky sometimes, and other times you get busted. Question is are you willing to take the risk? Most of the time, risk is just in the mind. The more you understand, the more you succeed. I can spam a thousand of links a day and not get busted, my doorway or landing page gets into SERP in just a week or 2. Lucky? maybe, it all depends on how you want to achieve your online goals Happy new year
Well said Regine, but I hate to argue your point on a bitter-sweet note. What you said is absouletely true, but what good is a spammer? sure you'll can ever get SERP rank 1 for any keyword with blackhat and spamming but in the long run your not going to get anywhere. people will identify you has "a bad person" and Google will eventually find you out. Then again there are some notoriously infamous black-hatters out there that's known for those kind of things. It just comes down to personal way of things, just like you've mentioned. [GENERAL STATEMENT] What is your goal and how you get there is upto you but be warned that your actions may well have severe consequences [/GENERAL STATEMENT]
To anyone trying to read the article - sorry but there's been a bit of a problem with my hosting. so the site's down for a revamp of core files! Please return back in a few hours
Matt Cutts followed up on Google's decision to remove the suggestion to submit to directories in their webmaster guidelines. Wish I had the link, but let me summarize instead. Matt Cutts said that there are too many fly by night and low quality directories out there and that Google did not want to encourage people to submit to such directories. When asked if all directory links were being devalued he said not at the present time, but that Google may decide differently somewhere down the road. Also removed from Google's guidelines is their suggestion to "have other relevant sites link to yours." People are still submitting to directories and getting relevant backlinks to their site. It looks like Google simply did not want to encourage link building as a way to rank in their search engine. But until they change their algorithm, Google will continue to place a high importance on backlinks. You can catch part of the info regarding Matt Cutts' response here. Wish I had the other and more informative link...
Ahh, thanks for the update snowbird. However, my thoughts on this is that -Google made a huge mistake ages ago when they put so much priority on how many back links you have, especially since the launch of PageRank. Now, they realized how inapproiate it is, with purposes of directories only serving as providing with an outbound link. Which makes you question the value of a directory if Google didn't make back links such a big thing. Frankly, their system including site values, SERPs and authority all depend on PR which depends on back-links - so they can't really "emit" the use of backlinks right away. Must be hard work in the Google headquarters trying to find a work-a-round for this little dilemma. That's not factual in any sense, just my 2 cents thrown in with a bit of common sense