It's official Google has opened up a can of whoop ass on directories

I think what he is asking is where you were when everything was going well. We all know you by now. Have you been waiting the whole time quietly for your chance to trash them believing Google is on your side and not theirs?

 

Can I have an Amen ???

 

I didnt bother with this forum and for the same reasons Google targeted the members who you believe did nothing wrong. But then maybe I was wrong.

 

I don't discount the power of internet advertising at all. I do discount that value of general directories and bidding directories as a reasonable ROI for advertising, unless your target is other directory owners or webmasters looking for other directories accpeting submissions. If I were David Duval, just as a for example, of course I'd be advertising on directories. For general advertising, I wouldn't recommend them because your audience will never see your ads - because they don't visit directories.

Going well for whom? The directory owners taking money. That pretty much ends the list.

Google IS on his side and not on theirs.

 

And those listed didn't benefit?

 

This tread reminds me of this thread...
A whole lot of bickering and a whole lot of nothing being said...

 

Ask yourself this: What is the difference between the directories that got punished and those that didn't?

It's not rocket science, you know...

 

If we are talking about paid links here... why didnt this get penalized? C'mon, look at all the "paid ads"... every single page on that site.

This whole argument is so old it makes me sick.

 

No they didn't . The main beneficiary of a web directories have been other directory owners themselves. Other kind of sites didn't benefit. Check the Mobile Phone Example. Apply it for general directories. I have a mobile phone selling website, i list them in 50+ paid directories, how many sales will i make. Perhaps none.

 

No, it's NOT just about paid links. Google doesn't penalize sites for selling or buying links. All they do is convert them from PR links to advertising links by nullifying the PR and anchor text benefits.

It's also about massive interlinking of sites.

It's also about openly advertising PR benefits for buying links.

And yes, the argument may be old - so are Google's policies. The people punished were openly violating those policies and they got burned.

 

minstrel, then lets talk about adwords for 15 seconds...
Do you think thats money better spent?
I think thats the biggest ripoff on the planet. The money never stops flowing from advertisers to little g's pocket. I don't see you having any problem with them however...

edit:
If you want to talk about interlinks... what do you think directory critic is doing when most people have a "rate me" gif on their directory?

 

They are just Ads and google doest penalize you for keeping ads on a website. Infact they will never do so. I have a website, i need traffic and certainly i will buy ad spots on other relevant sites so that i get traffic and hits. But that doesnt happen with the case of web directories. Directory owners don't say "If you submit to my directory, you will get exposure and traffic and sales and conversions".... they do say "Submit to a PR5 web directory which has 10K backlinks and you will get good amount of link juice" and that is what google doesnt want.

 

They give you traffic and charge you money . Whats wrong with it ? It worked most of the time for me. The first link in my signature. I did a 100$ adwords campaign for it one day which brought me like 300 super duper laser targetted hits and many emails regarding my services from the contact form, the investment was recovered with lots of profits. Adwords rocks ! ! !

 

aditya_sfs:

So if you tippy toe around the fact you wont get the whip?
I don't recall alive or aviva screaming about their high PR yet they got the axe just as my dir did. And I never made PR a big selling point either.

Its all just part of the BS factor.

 

best thing to do with selling links on directory's is only sell links to other director's as advertising with the category called "Relevant links"

 

Yes, I do think that's money better spent.

1. There are quality control measures in place for publishers.
2. The ads displayed on publishers' sites are targeted (contextual).
3. The ads displayed on publishers' sites are not vulnerable to penalization because they do not pass PR to begin with. They are advertisements, pure and simple, and they don't make claims to anything else.

What is "directory critic"?

More generally, what effect do any of those "rate me" buttons have on (a) backlinks benefits, or (b) real world traffic? It's a gimmick for buyers of directory scripts with, as far as I can tell, little real benefit to the owner or the link. They're also usually pretty simple minded scripts - I had the feature enabled for a while on one of my directories and the owner of a Brazilian site was getting all his buddies to visit and rate it "10". I've disabled that feature and the "comments" feature for the same reason.

 

Com'on dude, live in reality. Everyone says that but actually its just a show off on forums. The main intension which every directory owner has is to sell link juice and page rank. Period ! !

 

You just cant please some people... if you have PR you are a PR whore... if you have no PR, you are QBC.

I'm done with this thread... its utterly ridiculous and so are most of the replies.

 

From directory traffic, prolly not. But what about the search engine benefit the directories have given for years. And what about directories ranking for terms related to their catgories? Sure, those are rare to find, but are you telling me that a listing in the v7n directory for example didn't, doesn't and won't help you increase your rankings in the search engines?