What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones

Great post made by Rand on seomoz.org ( http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-mak...y-and-why-google-penalized-dozens-of-bad-ones )

Seems the google anger is really bad reflected into the directories traffic ... alexa seems to be going straight down

AliveDirectory.com


AvivaDirectory.com


DirectoryDump.com

 

heh, this bit made me laugh...

"...what can I say, even I was tempted by the easy money of directories once..."

 

interesting !! hmm wonder what google does with the rest

 

wow... check out the number of users ...

We still have to get an answer from Google.

 

Main Boom,

The Alexa downtrend you are seeing is happening across the board, and seems to be a fault with the reporting tool.

Otherwise I could just say that perhaps DP directory owners are mad at Google because their Alexa has tanked.



It was a good post by Rand. I do hope directory owners take notice and evolve their directories as we've been telling them to do for months now

 

From the front page of seomoz...

The cost of this is $49/month...

What do you really think he is teaching? SE Manipulation of course...
Why isnt his site banned for such practices...
Do you really think I will take the advice of this guy?

So called experts with friends in high places...
Give me a break...

 

Yes its an error on the reporting tool which is across the board

 

Yes agreed, same problem with DirectoryCritic I don't think they ever went for paid advertising across the forums (signatures etc...) or on other directories.

 

I wondered how long it would take Rand to chime in on this one.

I'm not sure I agree with his assessment on what Google considers to be a good directory, though. For example, he points out niche directories, but on his list of penalised directories there's LinkLister, which is niche. General directories tend to be more noticeable, so it may be simply that the niche directories are lower profile on the whole, and haven't been singled out for a manual penalty because they haven't been noticed.

 

Yikes thats rough....

"bigweblinks" doesnt even make it to the first page in google unless you do bigweblinks.com ouch!

 

His article makes a lot of sense and is a good read.

It's a shame he couldn't get one of the big boys on interview. I would have been quite interested as I'm sure others would have been to hear what they had to say about the punishment.

The most interesting point for me was:

Start with the head and the tale will follow perhaps?

 

Excellent article and it clears off all controversial points. So hey guys stop making crappy bullshit sites to sell links and make good sites and promote for traffic ,not for bullshit pagerank.

And i guess shawn should nofollow all signature links as well After it is traffic that matters, it will keep coming even with nofollow

 

Nice read.

I thought #5 was the only point that could have real weight if it did.

 

"Two weeks ago, Google took some severe action against a number of general topic web directories."

This is obvious but only Google knows what action (s) was taken so for anyone to profess they know is completely false. While there are/may be some truths, I still maintain that nothing here is based on any factual information.

"However, today I wanted to seriously cover the topic of how and why Google might take this move"

How and why Google might take this action is right. Pure speculation and opinion. What is sad is that people claim to know what's going on when in fact it their personal opinion and guess work yet write stuff like this as if it were gospel.

 

It IS an excellent summary of what happened and why.

Rand's article should be required reading for every directory owner currently whining about losing rank, traffic, customers, and credibility.

I especially liked the bolded parts below:

1. General in subject matter - this isn't a bad thing on its own, but it's certainly a signal that you may be getting a manipulative directory) . While there are a few good general subject directories that Google probably does want to count (Lii, Yahoo!, DMOZ) there are far more who simply build general subject because it maximizes potential revenue (as anyone can apply).
2. Anyone can get in - If you don't filter out low quality, spammy websites from being listed in your directory, even a pretty badly built algorithm can easily spot and remove you. Besides which, Google has been on a tear for years about bad links and bad neighborhoods and how they use the sites you link to as a signal for spam identification.
3. Marketing to Webmasters - If your forum signature at Digitalpoint (sorry to stereotype, but it's just so true) contains links to three directories you own, you're probably in possession of three obviously manipulative directories. I'm sure there's a couple exceptions, but if I were Matt Cutts, I'd just tell one of my QC guys (hi Ryan!) to go spend a few days trawling DP for directory domains.
4. Promoting Search Engine Link Value, not Traffic - The great majority of the domains I listed use phrases like "search engine optimized" or "high PageRank" or "highy ranked" to describe their directory. Once again, this should be a clear signal that you're not selling listings in a directory, you're selling links that are supposed to manipulate the search engine rankings.
5. Use of Manipulative Link Building - Since the general directory industry seems to pride itself on toolbar PageRank, there's a lot of very shady link building tactics being employed by many directory owners. Sponsoring blog template themes, buying links at crappy directories (I know, the delicious irony of it all is hiliarious), putting out junk press releases, releasing link-passing affiliate programs, joining webmaster forums that allow signature links, etc.
6. Stuffing Links & Content to "Look Natural" - It's rough to see the effort that many directory owners put into trying to "appear" natural, by adding links to government and education resource websites, major media sites, etc. A lot of the time, it's really easy to spot this "looking natural" business over an actual, naturally built directory. It's usually by category - the section on social sciences is filled with a few great sites, while the page on Minnesota DUI Lawyers looks a little funny.
7. Setting up "Premium" Sponsorships - When directories have a higher price you can pay for "extra links" or a higher placement on the page or assurance that you'll be linked to in every category, that's a decent sign that Google's spam team is going to come calling one of these days.
8. Interlinking with Other Directories - If I can buy entry in your directory, along with three other directories for "one low price," I'd probably be better off burning those twenties for warmth (or, you know, trading them in for $19 Canadian).
9. Common Popular Links - When I look through a directory's "most recent additions" and see a cosmetic surgeon, an Internet casino games site, a UK mortgage property and a Pennsylvania health insurance provider, I can be relatively assured that any decent, self-respecting search engine probably wants to yank the link value pretty quickly.
10. Bid for Links - This has to be the most obvious link manipulation ploy I've seen in a while. How could you honestly think that search engines would want to count those links? It's like the eBay of spam, only without negative feedback.
11. Multiple Links with Your Choice of Anchor Text - I shouldn't have to explain this one - if you can choose your anchor text and point to several pages on your domain from your listing, it's pretty clear that the directory isn't targeting humans.
12. Banner Ads from Your Directory on SEO Sites - It's like waving a flag with a voice-activated, wind powered speaker that yells "ban me! ban me!" Sure, you might get clicks and money and submissions, but you've gotta know that search QCs read SEO blogs, too.

 

It may be an excellent read but I definately don't agree that it's summary of what happened.

If u go thru my previous post, only point #5 had real substance to it.

Much of the content was opinionated.

I mean alot of people might like to speculate and believe that they know the exact answer to what happened.

I mean it wouldn't take a very intelligent person to go out and try to sell Coke's secret formula, while Coke is the only one who knows it.

This is pretty much what I see going on.

Again, the answer to the 'why' in my opinion if there really is a 'why' remains unanswered.

Reasons for a situation arising have been stated clearly with pictorial examples.

'paid links which attempt to game search engine results'

 

Does it realy matter? The message is clear enough. Get real.

 

I liked this

 

Yeah, I saw your post. I didn't bother to comment on it because it struck me as either very uninformed or a good example of the ostrich-with-its-head-in-the-sand that seems to characterize those directory owners Google caught with their hands in the candy jar.

Your opinions are out of touch with reality.

Rand's correspond very closely with my own observations.