I don't own a directory myself, but I've been submitting one of my sites to directories on a regular basis for the past few months. Recently the following problem has occurred TWICE: When checking my site's backlinks, I discovered that it had hundreds of links from the same directory, even though I had only submitted to one particular category page. One of these was a paid submission and I contacted to owner and complained. The owner told me that it was because he kept a "New Listings" section on every page of his directory, and my site happened to be on the list when a Googlebot went through the directory. In effect the Googlebot saw temporary sitewide links from his directory to my site. Some people might tell me that I got a whole sitewide listing, even though I only paid for one category, so why should I complain. However, I don't want any sitewide listings anywhere, because I'm afraid that it might look suspicious to Google, and my site's rankings could be adversely affected. Today I discovered that this same thing has happened in another directory I submitted to recently, in this case a free submission. So my request to directory owners is this: If someone doesn't pay for sitewide links, or ask for sitewide links, then please don't give them sitewide links. Thank you
mmm I don't think they have any choice? errr. If I am not mistaken the new listings are taken FROM the new listings.
most directories show latest sites added.. if you are submitting to directories which are adding sites continuously then it wont be a problem
Thanks for the replies. Actually, I don't think the directory owner did this intentionally in either case. Most likely neither of them realized that this could happen. That's why I brought it up here. The way to solve the problem is to avoid putting a "new sites" list on every page of the directory. That's what causes it.
You are right billybw Having sitewide for some time then dissappearing may hurt your site preety much. If any directory owner doesn't understand it - should never start a directory.
Some directory owners use a variety of mods to display the latest "featured links" on their Website. I did it as well, and never had a complaint one. Because sitewide links are certainly more valuable then a featured link. My latest featured links would also display on the homepage, with less then 5 outgoing links. So if you wanted some of my pagerank, that was a sure fire way to get some of it. To answer the question in the previous post... Building backlinks is what make you popular, especially in Google's algo. If you are running a sitewide link on a directory, that could equate to 2000+ backlinks to your site. Some fear when those links disappear, Google will penalize you. But its been my expereience that the only penalty is that you are 2000+ backlinks fewer. So the SERPs will reflect the drop in links going to your Website.
Come on, do not pretend you don't know it... Just imagine - one day you have hundreds of backlinks. Google see it all. Then after some time all of it dissapears. Google doesn't see hundreds of backlinks any more. How do you think what can Google do with it? Of course it all depends what percentage of your total links it was, how strong were backlinks that dissappeared. Whatever, this can't bring any good, but may hurt seriously.
Your site showing up on newly added pages is not going to hurt you in regards to any search engine. It is a listing that is what it is, newly added. The content will change constantly on active directories, there today and gone tomorrow. Nothing new to anyone, including the bots programmer. Quite ordinary. Best you can do is not to submit to any directory that shows new listings if you feel it is harmful to your site.
Wait are u talking about me having backlinks on some other sites, or are you talking about backlinks on your site ? I was talking about backlinks/links/sitewidelinks/ i have on my site for other sites. I am assuming u are talking about others having ur backlinks ?