It has been years since I have used website directories. I am not sure if the benifit is what it used to be.
- Increased ranking in serps - Traffic - PR If directories are worth the effort which ones would you suggest?
Serps increase yes Traffic indirectly from the increased serps = se traffic yes Pr gain and increase yes
for serps increase - yes for traffic - possibly, depending on the directory for pr - don't count on it.
I think the most important backlinks are those that are naturally acquired via social interaction. If you write good media, people will eventually find you, link to you, talk about you, and spread you around.
Directories offer an easy way to get links. A lot of them won't count for much, but some of them will give your site a real boost. You just have to decide if you want to take the "submit to all and see what happens" approach or the "research them all and submit to a few" approach. Both methods take about the same time with the free directories so I just submit to them all. For paid directories I'm more interested in making sure it is very relevant to my niche and will drive some traffic. I'm doing a test with a new web site. I'm not submitting to any web directories, forums, blogs, article sites, etc. Instead I'm taking that time and working on other link building techniques. Once I'm ranking for some terms I'll see if adding to web directories to strengthen the search term works.
Short answer to the question is - yes they are worth it. Though watch out for the ones filled with spam.
I'd go for targeting and use the Directories for that. So a niche directory or portal site is good for this. I get asked this a great deal - Why do people use directories?: Pagerank This seems to be the most important reason among webmasters, by linking to a page with higher PR than they have - it gives their PR a boost by tranferring some of a page's rank to the linking website. Linking for pagerank and using directories to aid in that is a very strong and powerful motivation, as the webmaster community thinks that a green bar that has a high rank equals profit and instant success for them, and it's just untrue. Links within Directories aren't for that and isn't how it works. Links are for finding information and directories are built to help with that - and it's just very wrong for pagerank alone. Pagerank just sends out the wrong message. One-Way Links One-way linking has now taken over chasing reciprocal exchanges, and are worth more because they look like votes for whatever site. You should always attempt to obtain these whether paid or not. Paid is fine and well worth shelling out £100 for a well-placed backlink. Infact most paid one-ways are automatically given a superior listing eg: Featured or Sponsored links above normal/other sites within news, content, results sections etc - so you get: One-way link/vote [*]Adspace it's placed in well worth doing in my opinion. Advertising Purposes Adverts - Can't avoid 'em. They're everywhere. But are important for attracting new business or sustaining a business and brand. Which is why buying adverts and links is necessary for any business to grow, but it need not cost a fortune and doesn't so long as you know what produces results and where the low cost options are. Directories are great for low to medium cost links and advertisments - many are targeted and do nothing but promote certain industries! This makes them very attractive for businesses looking for targeted exposure.
Despite the illusion that some directories seek to foster the vast majority of directories are created for the sole purpose of being spider food for increasing a sites position in SERPs. They are rarely used by real people to find sites, and apart from a minuscule number they are usually so devoid of content that you couldn’t find what you were looking for if you tried. Google give a number of guidelines on how to make websites “google friendly†These include only having natural links, not buying links and making sites for people and not search engines. This information is plastered all over there Webmaster Help Center . Given this it is almost inconceivable that google does not discount the links from all but a few directories to a level to that they are either worthless or have infinitesimal value. Other search engines are also likely to have similar algorithms. In the main the people telling us all about the benefits of pay for inclusion general directories are the owners of those directories.
Dose any one have a list of directories that dose not have NOFOLLOW tags and actually give a site some pR. From what I can tell the majority of directories are not worth anything towards pr, or can some one advise otherwise?
a lot of times they are not even giving you any PR, because inside the directory they will put rel='nofollow'
Not many directories practice "nofollow". More importantly submitting to directories based on page rank is just what google is trying to stop.