I've been reading that Google is penalizing sites for participating in directories. Yet here I see directory participation as a key link-building tool. Any information about what Google is doing? I can see their point that to be a strong search engine that it's best to point directly to the content and not the directory. But what does this do to directory sites that are getting "penalized" for hosting directories (and I don't mean D-Moz)?
Google may be discounting links coming from a directory but they are certainly not penalizing you for having these links.
This is not true at all. Its very difficult for a bot to categorize a site into a directory or a content site especially when there are content directories coming in. And what about article directories then? How will they stop that? Directory links are still a very common form of optimization. Robert
In a way, Google is devaluing any purchased link whether it is on directory or what. The key is the authoritive a website has. Certainly you don't trash a Dmoz link do you?
If you purchase a link on a website, and assuming that the websites is not some MFA Scrapper site or a page with 100's of links (i.e. word clouds), the is no way for Google to tell if you purchased the link. For instance, how is google to know that someone paid me to put up a link in my blogroll? What If I only have 3 other links there?
According to Matt Cutts, Google can detect purchased links that are placed in a predicted way. For example, footer links are usually purchased. Those purchaed links are "Sponsored", "Advertising", "Resources", and such. A little better example is when outbound links are linked to irrelevant links.
How do you place links in a predicted way? And what if I don't write sponsored links on my site? If I want to link to my favorite arcade website so that my readers can enjoy it as well...why would Google assume that it's a paid link?
I have never heard that they are penalizing the links from directories. They don't like links from link farms. Bow it is upto you to find a directory and not a link farm.
ya, agree with this points. google are quit picky, and will exclude links that it consider not natural.
Yahoo sells link space. Google doesn't not penalized directory links. Infact Google doesn't like link brokers, farming etc. You can read more about it at link building and web directories
you are right. very easy to detect as a site on food recipe doesn't have any reason to link to Cheap Viagra or DUI Lawyer sites. it is extremely inportant to get links from relevant sites