I have a site which is 2 months old. If I do - say - 200 directory submissions over the period of the next few months, is this likely to get my site penalised? I will probably do the odd few other links as well.
No, provided you do it gradually (i.e., not 200 on the same day). Do not send first to all high ranking sites (e.g., PR5+), make a mix of the sites with different PR (e.g., PR5, PR0, PR3, PR0, PR4, PR1... etc.). Try also to change the anchor links in the different directories, so that it looks like "natural growth."
I was watching Matt Cutt's the other day(he works for Google's spam team). He was talking about backlinking. One thing he stressed, is you do NOT get penalized for having too many backlinks. BUT, since you're going to be getting backlinks anyway, focus on getting HIGH PR backlinks(from pages with a high Page rank). He gave a very simple example. If you and a friend have the exact same website, and you have 100 links from all your buddies' sites(and they have no PR), then your friend, who only had 10 backlinks from High PR sites will rank higher than you, because of the authority/importance of the sites linking to you. Some people waaaay overthink this backlinking process. Get good quality backlinks. Here's a few for ya to start off with. Edu: http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/blog/the-slo...small-business http://jag.lcc.gatech.edu/blog/2009/...-the-real.html http://jag.lcc.gatech.edu/blog/2009/...m-schools.html http://vistacollege.edu/blog/ http://robocup.bowdoin.edu/blog/2008...omment-page-1/ http://wfnetwork.bc.edu/blog/if-i-kn...hat-i-know-now http://www.duke.edu/search/?q=blackboard&start=50 http://illinois.edu/blog/view?topicId=632 http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news...ss-policy.html http://itl.accc.uic.edu/blog http://content.ksg.harvard.edu/blog/...-in-one-chart/ http://polymath.mit.edu/blog/stats-april-2009/ http://newcollege.asu.edu/blog/student1/ http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/blog/?p=176 http://www.library.illinois.edu/blog...r_open_da.html http://lgo.mit.edu/blog/beccaf/2009/...end-in-italia/ http://lib.stanford.edu/node/142/falconer-blog http://cit.duke.edu/blog/2009/05/18/new-tools/ http://www.gse.harvard.edu/blog/news...heir-side.html http://web.mit.edu/ist/isnews/v20/n06/200602.html http://law.scu.edu/blog/officialannouncements/index.cfm http://law.scu.edu/blog/pilcs/index.cfm http://library.usu.edu/blog/ http://knightcenter.utexas.edu/blog/?q=en/node/4058 http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissions/default.aspx http://www.cia.edu/blog/ http://www2.wabash.edu/blog/ http://weblogs.lib.uh.edu/communications/ http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/m...ng-energy/882/ http://news-libraries.mit.edu/blog/c...on-profit/543/ http://law.scu.edu/blog/sba/ http://www.libs.uga.edu/blog/?p=2141 http://www.libs.uga.edu/blog/?p=2163 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/blog/tags/news/ http://lib.stanford.edu/searchworks http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/40 http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/node/139 http://www-cdn.educause.edu/blog/dia...lickers/165584 Code (markup): PR5 http://www.lgbtcareerlink.com http://www.offspring.com/ Code (markup): PR6 http://www.vetvoice.com/ http://12seconds.tv/ http://www.myleftwing.com/ Code (markup): PR7 http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/ http://www.tugzip.com Code (markup): PR8 http://www.silverlight.net/ http://www.movabletype.org/ Code (markup): PR9 http://www.sourceforge.net/ http://addthis.com/ Code (markup):
Totally true, but you can get sandboxed for getting too many links TOO QUICKLY... and the Google Sandbox is for real! Excellent links (+rep added), but a couple of them are incomplete...
What would you say is too many? Obviously 1000 a day is too many but is it Ok to get 5 a week - or 10 a week - 0r 20 - or 30?
Oh, I've created 100 links/week for sites that are 1 month old without getting sandboxed... My guess (not scientific evidence) is that you could easily add 40 links/day pretty soon without getting into the sandbox. I'd suggest that you start slow (say 5 links/day) and by the end of the week you have doubled it, and at the end of next week you double again, etc... so as look like natural growth. At a certain moment you WILL be able to post 1000 links/day without getting any hits...
In my opinion you can. Any dodgy backlinks will lower the overall trust of your site and make it harder for the more genuine links to build up the trust with Google needed to start ranking competitively in the longer term. Mass directory backlinks whether done slowly or fast are exceptionally dangerous in my opinion for new websites with little authority, and sites with authority don't need them anyway. This is just my opinion, but I pull in millions of visitors from Google a year.
The general definition of the sandbox (at least the one I go with) is that you can't get out of it within 1 month anyway, it typically takes at least 6 months for the average site, excluding some extreme circumstances where the website is awesome and gets excellent exposure and links. If you get real editorial links and Google likes your site, somewhere between 4-18 months you will see your SE traffic start to jump, especially for internal pages and longtail searches.
probably not, but it's pretty much a waste of time. it's gonna do you little to no good getting in a bunch of crappy directories. take your time and get listed in quality directories that people actually use. this site is pretty good... ubl.org ...you pay a small fee but they slowly distribute your information across all the directories that are actually beneficial.
Er... the fact is that if you build links carefully, you do NOT get into the sandbox. My new blog (www.seo-translator.com) was started in June (3 months ago). For my top keywords I already rank #2, #1 and #10 respectively, with the most competitive keyword ranking currently #87. In two months I expect to be #1 in my top five keywords. (Whether the website is awesome I cannot say, I'm somewhat biased )
Many thanks all. Linkbuilding can be a bit of a minefield. Some say links in cannot hurt your site (so competitors can't blast new sites out of the water) whereas others say it can get you sandboxed. Has anyone been sandboxed because of 200 or so directory links?
As stated, provided you don't send them at the same time but gradually, the answer is no. You can be listed in 1000 directories, it should do not harm at all provided you do it gradually. In any case, try to include a few high-quality ones early on. A single link in DMOZ is worth as much as or even more than 500 links in the usual low PR directory... HOWEVER, do NOT build links exclusively with directories. Do the usual linkbuilding stuff: comments on blogs, articles, posting on forums (including this one) with links in your signature (have a look at my two links in my signature), etc.
You think that sending out 1000 backlinks per day on a month-old site will make you win the race? THAT will guarantee you the sandbox! The trick is to go as fast as possible without getting penalized. While you have few links it is dangerous to increase your links many times more than the links you already have, but it's a geometrical progression. Say that you start with 10 links/day. By the time you have 300 you can be posting 30/day without fear. By the time your reach 3000 links, you should be able to create 300 backlinks/day with out any problem. Reach 10,000, and you can send over 1000 links in one go with no huhu at all. But what WILL get you in the sandbox is having 10 links and submit 1000 in a couple of days. Do you really think that the search engines are THAT stupid?
My site is 5 years old and has a google pr3 will it do any good to submit it to directories like these? Also with an older more trusted site like this should i worry about how quick i submit them?
No i dont think so as from last 2 years i am engaged in link submission and never got into sandbox,Though through link submission you may get handful links only.