Hi there, I am completely new to the whole SEO part of the business. I just recently moved from sales into Marketing and have been looking into the companies back links. I have 1 question that I am unclear on - and I have been doing alot of reading up on it over the last few weeks!! It's in relation to Page Rank and directories. I am trying to understand how Google views a website that appears in a directory. Let's say for instance the overall directory is ranked as 5 but the page that your company is linked to is not actually ranked by Google. What does that mean for the validity of the link? Will Google recognise this as a valid link back to the company website?? Will the fact that the page the link appears on is unranked mean that the link I set up won't count in the end towards upping our PR with google? I've been reading up on so much about this but there are always the basic questions I don't seem to be able to answer!! I would be grateful if anyone out there can help me. Thanks, Angela.
Dear Angela, you posted a very good question, which will basically define if that directory is good or not. See, the basis of page rank is that what is the PR of the page from where you are getting link? Not the PR of the home page of that site. Another thing, is that page passing the PR or not? You will see many directories which will have ? in the URL, it means these pages are dynamic pages and they will not have any PR associated with them, and they will never pass the PR to your site. Another one, if a directory is having good structure but they are either using in-direct link to your site or using "nofollow" to your link, then too they will not pass the PR to your site. So a directory is having the PR 5 or even better does not means if it is going to pass the PR to your site or not. The PR of the page in which your site link will come will matter.
Right, nowadays, PR is almost all about backlinks from high PR, keyword-relative sites! Directories submission might be a complementary but not essential. Have a nice day,
First off PR doesnt matter (unless your selling links) Secondly (and keeping this simple) the effect of a link depends upon the page on which its situated not the website. So if you have a link on a directory with a home page PR5, and the link is on a pr0 then you have a PR0 link. As someone mentioned directories are almost dead for any sort of quality links.
Thank you everyone for your help with this. The answers given were pretty much what I was thinking myself which leaves me ready to jump off the balcony It seems like most directories pages are not ranked by Google which means all the work I have been doing is not being recognised!!!! Oh well back to the drawing board and time to figure out the best way of tackling this to get better links to better directories that actually are ranked in google! Any advice will not be overlooked! Again thank you all for the replies it has helped me from spending more time setting up unnecessary backlinks.
and snowangle i want to give you one litter advice befor you jump from your balcony , do homeword about do follow/no follow links, if any doubt ask me here or pm me. ok best luck
Sorry but I think you're wrong about this. There are many Wordpress blogs which use the default permalink method, so they have URLs such as ?p=53 and these pages have PR. It is wrong to say that they all don't have PR and will never pass on PR.
If you are looking to directories for PR juices, then the only way to get them is through sponsored/featured links which appear on the home page. Majority of the directories have inner pages with no page ranks and so it would be futile to get listed on those pages, by looking at the higher ranked home/index page! Regards, RightMan
Thanks RightMan - that is what I am looking at now. Getting a list together so I can check out the cost involved in this.
Angela, Both quality and quantity are important where as quality outweighs quantity. If the page with which you get link has some PR its good but that doesn't mean you could not get benefit, if the page doesn't have PR. Context is more imp. If you get the links from the page belongs to your niche market with your aimed anchor text most important. Directories in most cases don't have PR on the inner categories. Having a featured link is good but here also you have to take care of few things. Does that site have enough traffic. Get featured link on the top directories rather than cropping and dieing directories. You should research before going into all this. Few top directories Best of the Web Gimpsy GoGuides JoeAnt.com Skaffe Yahoo! Directory Dmoz Better search more and make you own vision
Hi all, OK looking at all the responses I have recieved here, and taking into account this is from a complete novice, it looks like the basics I am being told are as follows: 1/ Directories are the norm for setting up backlinks although the further into the directory you appear the page may not be recognised/ ranked by Google. This can cause a problem although does not mean they should be disregarded as Google can change page ranks regularly and whereas the PR was previously not recognised we may find a month/ 6 months down the line this has changed to 1 or more. 2/ Check the page source of everything as some directories may have 'nofollow' which means Google will not pay attention to the link. Also watch out for websites that contain Dynamic Pages as Google may have problems reading these ....... but don't disregard them. 3/ Look, as a priority, at sites aimed at my market which in this instance is the ski market. If it is a site that is related to my industry or contains our keywords it will be better in the long run. 4/ Sponsored or featured links may result in our ad appearing on the homepage or a page of the site with a PR. I need to take into account whether or not I will get a valid share of this PR and also accept that the number of other people listed on the same page will also be getting a share of this PR. 5/ From other research on this site I notice that blogs, forums and articles are a good way to also gain back links to our site but again we need to be careful of 'nofollow' set ups while taking into accounts the usual rules and regulations. So basically............. I need to continue to list our site on as many directories as I can while paying attention to the page they are to be listed on. Even if there is no PR listed it may still be worth setting a link up. I need to get on with submitting articles/ continue to join forums/ discussions to get out website out there and I need to get linked to as many tourism websites/ directories/ affiliates as I can. Basically alot of research and time...... Does all this sound about right and like I am heading in the right direction? One thing I know is there is no easy solution and this will take alot of time to set up as well as waiting for results to appear Again thanks to everyone for your feedback. Angela.
There is no short cut for success. Do Everything whatever you wrote, you will certainly have better results
The link value will only be connected to the page that your link is on, not the whole site PR. so if you get a link on a page with a PR of 0, but the site has a PR of 10 then you still get no PR link value, although you might get some visitor traffic which can be equally as beneficial.