The Future For Directories

Now the dust has settled regarding Google’s stance on directories, what does the future hold for the sector?
In my own opinion the move made by Google was a master stroke for various reasons.

If a directory owner had the capital to list their site on 1,000’s of paid directories, their website was bound to rank well, regardless of the optimisation of the site, the amount of traffic the site delivered and the strength of the inner pages.

This is history now, Google have adjusted their platform so only genuine directories perform well. I have noticed Google now displays links based on quality not page rank. Google is now indexing more and more links from free directories even though they display little to no page ranking. This is fantastic news for the general public, however not so good for directory owners.

I believe in the future Google will continue to stamp down on paid directories as well as penalising sites who pay for links. So how can directories be of benefit if less and less people want to purchase links?

The answer to this is simple, people need to look away from the direct benefit and look towards in-direct benefit, I will try to explain. I own a free reciprocal link business services directory. I gain benefit in terms of my link building process is totally automated through the directory and content is added on a regular basis. By using this tactic as well as others I have transformed my business from being an average ranked business services website, to being one of the highest ranked in the UK.

All online businesses have to have a degree of flexibility, simply because the goal posts change on a regular basis. By being flexible and forward thinking it is possible to use a bad situation to your benefit. For sure people will continue to purchase links from directories, even when doing so will damage their sites ranking, but eventually the stream of customers will dry up. The majority of paid directories will have to change their business model if they want to be around in a few years time.

 

Your way off in some of your predictions. In no way will adding a site to a directory damage a website.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niINTKXT-zs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpcZyNW9E-w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r2vp4x-JtU&feature=related

 

??? it amazes me how many people still do not have a clear understanding, of a paid directory in that they are not paying for / buying a link but are paying for a review and or advertising

 

I agree a directory submission is simply a type of advertising, however it is not a very good method of advertising a website, they deliver very little in the way of traffic, unless you have a homepage listing and even then it is very flimsy.

As for a review, not sure what you mean by this. I carry out website reviews all the time this is a totally different process to a directory submission. Matt mentions reviews here, sound is a little poor http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzYXhoKES6U

For a directory not to be classed as a system that sells links, they will have to do much more than re-brand their products.

In terms of value from directory links, buy 100 expensive directory links and see how many are indexed by Google, then look for positioning and visitor improvements, I can guarantee there will be none, as far as Google is concerned.



Of course with ever forum post on the web, these are just my own opinions. However I find it amusing the only people that think selling or buying links is currently not a good strategy is directory owners.

 

Perhaps your statement is too Search engine oriented ?

That view point often translates directly into what you do, this IMHO is true of the Majority of directories listed here, on Digitalpoint.

All business plans seem to begin an end with, "how do we keep the search engines happy"

Wishing all a happy 2008, new year , new opportunities , new horizons, or somat like that

 

I think the directory industry is bright for quality directories. There will always be spammy/crap sites no matter what the niche.

 

Paid directories are here to stay, though a good paid directory should also bring you traffic and not just PR!

 

Hello...

Q: The Future For Directories

A: It looks very promising as well rewarding for the directory industry

Paid directories are "Pay Per Review" (PPR) and not "paid links".
While google may have the majority of internet users its not the only SE
and what they choose to do is their business just like what a directory
owner does with his directory is his.

Happy New Year to All in Europe and Dont Drink and Drive....

thx
malcolm

 

You have made some good points and i think we can all agree times ae changing also wish your directory well it sounds like you have done a good job with it.

 

Hello Business Services,

We've had these discussions for a very long time now, and if you do a search you should probably find hundreds of answers like this one, web directories will always remain a very big part of the web. You say submitting to a web directory does not bring traffic, I disagree, it delivers a fair amount of traffic, some directories bring me 20/30 uniques a month which is great, do you know why? Considering the collection of listings gathered on a web directory, and if it is able to deliver 20/30 uniques per month for each listing, wouldn't that be high traffic?

You need to think "outside the box", for example, web directories are also a great opportunity to increase your SERPs and not to mention, they can help in many aspects, especially SE. I have done some research on this in the past, and if you do some research on a sites backlinks you'll see that Google counts these as any other links, meaning web directories may be a very good way to gather links for your web site, driving you more exposure as your SERPs grow.

However, I have to admit the future of web directories (some!) is not so bright, webmasters that don't adapt their web directories are certainly not going to have a bright future, now this can vary as we directory masters will have to change our web directories and adapt to the web, by developing new features and earning respect from the G may be a rough ride, but my advice is stick around, work hard and you should do just fine.

Meti

 

The way I see it is if your site is listed on, say... 1000 directory's and average 5 visits per month (on the low side), per directory. That equals 5000 unique visitors per month. (i.e. 1250 per week or 178 per day)

That's just a bonus 5k visits, because PR is the initial goal using Dir.

Jm2c

 

Exactly, and how do people find this "low traffic", there are web sites working very hard in order to achive 5k uniques a month, not only traffic, but web directories are great for SE aspects.

Meti

 

I believe in the future Google will continue to stamp down on paid directories as well as penalising sites who pay for links. So how can directories be of benefit if less and less people want to purchase links?

There are so many ways for directories to earn from free submissions and payment is not the only way...

 

Directories will continue to flourish irrespective of Google,Suppose if you have directories catering to certain niche then visitors would automatically come irrespective of Google

 

Google's aggressive campaign against paid links is actually good from my point of view, now less people are interested in creating web directories, 80 to 90% of free directories don't make it past the first year, this is very good too, also paid directories are extremely hard to promote and to be monetized unless you are prepared to spend xxxx to xxxxx and wait atleast 1 to 2 years before your directory become popular and etablished, this is maybe an indicator that the global number of free and paid directories will dramatically decrease in the next few years.

Great!! this is really exciting!! i won't lie to you as a business guy i'd love to see 90% of the directories disapear in the future so only me and my good digitalpoint friends who work hard on their directories and are not going anywhere will survive! so just keep your directories alive guys we will do more business in the future

 

It is going pretty well these days. I am confident directory industry will be positive in the days ahead.

 

Paid directories are here to stay - FREE directories have a leak future.

Reason-- Paid directories - charge a review fee and hence those directories will list only quality sites. No SPAMMY sites.

They are very well maintained - owners always work very hard to add contents, improve the site.As they are charging a review fee - they have to devote enough time to improve their sites.


On the other hand --

Free directory owners can not devote/have enough time to review hundreds of submissions per day - most of which are SPAMs. The result-- either the owner approves sites on a mass basis irrespective of quality OR he/she delete most sites again irrespective of quality. The result is low-quality.

Also as they do not charge a review fee- it is not always possible to invest time/money to improve the site on a continuous basis.

I believe - there will be less and less web directories in the coming days. On the other-hand -- the surviving directories will gain from strength to strength and owners will find ways to offer more values to webmasters by way of invetion of newer products.

Personally - Now, I am a full-time directory owner online. And I am slowly building a network -mostly Niche Directories- as I am in no hurry.

 

Happy New Year Guys

Nice to see some positive vibes about the future.

I am not so sure paid directories will do well unless they make drastic changes to their business models. Right or wrong directories are still measured by PR, and as Matt Cutts has alluded to Google is set to continue its hard stance. This is bound to mean more penalties and more PR cuts.

I believe one of the biggest mistakes directory owners made was openly networking with their peers on this forum, maybe if people had been a little subtle in their approach in building their sites ranking, things may have turned out differently.

So many people say they will not change their business model to suit Google, however the truth is somewhat different. How many directories have now changed for offering paid links to free links?

I think most people would agree directories are suppose to be platforms that highlight their listings/submissions, if this is true why is there hardly any basic optimisation features applied to a directories inner pages, even the strongest directories have generic tags.

The future for most directories that sell links is not good, however directories that offer a sound free service should perform well.

 

My directory is not a paid directory, I simply charge people a review fee. Do you really think Google is that stupid?

Paid directories will have to do much more than change the wording of their product.

I review websites from an optimisation point of view, however after carrying out this process I do not list the website in my directory, simply because it is not relevant.