Has directory submission hurt my site?

On 5 July I bought a bunch of .info domains named after some software I promote. photo-recovery.info was the first one ready. I find submission really boring so I paid $28 to Directory Maximizer to submit the site to 200 directories. This is not a complaint about Directory Maximizer. They did the job. But my web statistics show that the site has had just 18 (eighteen) unique visitors so far this month!

By comparison the site word-recovery.info has had no promotion except a few links from some of my own sites. That has already had 156 unique visitors so far this month. Excel-recovery.info has had 73 uniques.

Okay, they are different sites with different content aimed at different keywords. But is it really worth submitting to free directories (or paying a submission service)?

 

how old was tht site.If the site is new then it could have hurted you.

Submitting to free directories is important but submitting it in internal is necessary.Anything done to fast will hurt.

 

Well its according to how long ago they did the submission. Free directories (non-reciprocal especially) take longer to be accepted into the directory. Sometimes this process can take up to two months (if its a lazy directory). And you should be fine - 200 links in a day arn't enough to raise a google bombing flag.

 

don't be lazy!

browse the net to find Free Quality directories!
Question is, does your keywords rank in the first page?

If it does, you can get lots of traffics but if not its the opposite.

 

If your domain is new, it take some time.

 

yes i think manual submission is way better

 

200 directories in free submission is not much. Just wait for sometime.

How are the competitors in the niche?

 

hi

ur domain is totally new so it can take some time

thanks

 

Do you believe people are searching for sites in directories? Yahoo directory or some popular niche directory may bring you traffic. For traffic you'll need good SERPs position or being active on a photo forum and having "photo recovery" link in sig, or post an article on a photo blog or discuss the topic in appropriate Google/Yahoo groups...or to set up some free service, award, competition...and make an offer in Buy/Sell section here on DP...

 

i manually submitted to most of the directories on their list myself and I did not get many acceptance e-mails back yet. I notice on alot of those sites that list their stats that their are 20k pending sites. So either your sites got rejected, its still sitting in the pile or no one is there to approve or deny your sites.

 

and i don't think directory submission will get you traffic they are only for backlinks.

 

Submitting to free directories won't to much but won't hurt your site either.
If you have the time do it, or just outsource it for some cheap $$

 

directory submissions will not hırt your seo

 

It won't hurt your SEO on your page, but it could hurt PR. It depends on what kind of site your linking it on. If its just a regular directory your probably fine, but I think google no longer likes raw link trading sites.

 

I think you are jumping the gun in regards to thinking it was directories that hurt your site. It is too new and no links that are submitted to a free directory get approved at the same time.

 

I have used these so called manual submission services 500 dirs for peanuts snds good but it is indeed automated most of the time if not all. Some of these dirs can be bad neighborhood without you knowing. So it's not entirely impossible. But usually finds a way to banlance out in the long run imo. Best way is to do like the others said start slow doing free manual submissions yourself using search engines. And throw in good high pr directory listings from time to time Not all at once! using the right keywords and you will get where you need.

 

You believe this?
Then your competitors can all put your link on a "bad neighbourhoud site" to get rid of you from SERPs.

As it was said many times, putting a link on a bad site do not hurt your sites PR or SERPs in any way.

 

The main thing people forget is that, Fast backlink building can hurt SEO Badly.I usually make my clients aware of this and they finds good result from this.

 

IMHO even if you submit to 200 directories on a single day, the day it is indexed by Googlebot will be spread over 1-2 months. This is because there is some spread in the date of acceptance by the directory owner, and added to that googlebot may visit the page after 30-45 days.