Guide to buy directory links

I thought I would share my tips on buying directory links for those who are new. This thread is based on my popular thread Tips for buying links at Link Development forum. Most of the tips may be applied to any site that sells links, but I want to focus on directory links and how to do with them in this thread.

Objectives:
How effectively you can build backlinks via directories.
How to buy directory links wisely.

1. Check the domain
The first thing you want to check is the domain. Due to the problems with increasing QBC's, I would recommend you to check the domain. Directory or any site made with a dropped domain often do not carry the current PR in the next update unless the site gains new backlinks and promotes heavily. Be careful if a directory has high PR on home page only.

2. Check the backlinks
Don't just check on total # of backlinks. Check also unique domain backlinks. By doing this, you can know if a site has good backlink profile or not. Furthermore, you can check backlink PR and their relevancy.

Recommended tool - http://backlinkwatch.com/

3. Check the current PR
You should always check the current PR. Also, make sure that the current PR is NOT fake one! Check the very page (inner page or sub-category link) your link is going to be placed.

Check Fake PR - http://www.seologs.com/pr-check/pagerank.html
Check Current PR - http://www.digpagerank.com/ - it also shows fake PR in red

4. Check the total outbound links
Some directories list way too many links on a page. Unless the page has a good PR, I recommend that you should avoid buying links on a page that lists over 30 outbound links. Remember, it's the total 30 outbound links, including regular and featured links.

5.Check the total outbound links on home page
Those links are usually sponsored links, or could be network links. I tend to avoid buying links on those directories unless I find a good deal. Often, I don't buy a sponsored link in this case. IMO, 20 outbound links on a directory home page are too many.

6. Check Alexa
Obviously, many will disagree on this. Nevertheless, it could be a useful reference, but never to determine the actual traffic.

7. Check PS
PS (PageStrength) has two big flaws. Nevertheless, some believe PS to be a useful tool, just like Alexa rank.

• .edu links are not treated specially by G (see what Matt Cutts said about it at the end of this video clip)
• The value of del.icio.us links - links may be fake and nofollow-tag links have no value in Google SEO (they won't be counted as backlinks by G). If you think this sort of links are valuable, I would recommend to buy links with nofollow tags on directories then.

8. Relevant category
Try to find a category as niche as possible when you submit your link in a directory. Your backlinks should be relevant to your site theme. However, featured listings on a higher page for a better PageRank juice could be better than regular links.

9. Featured listing
If your site has PR0 or very low, you may want to consider buying a featured listing as many directories list links based on PR. Secure a better position + better visibility. Often, you get more deep links as well.

10. Deep links
Directories that offer deep links are even better. You can optimize your domain URL as well as inner pages.

Find Deals
Whenever you want to buy a link from a directory, never forget to check Solicitations & Announcements forum first.

1. Use coupons
Some directories offer coupons. Take advantage of the coupons and save money!

2. Budget directories
Some directories offer very affordable listing fees. I'm currently developing Directory of Budget Directories for those who seek good deals.

Beyond the tips- potential of directory
It's not just a directory's future PR, but overall growth. If you can know the owner of a directory is promoting heavily, building good backlinks, then you probably don't worry about the current PR, even when its 0. If you are a wise buyer, you would not hesitate to buy PR0 links on directories that are run by good owners. Buy them while cheap. Expect a huge ROI!

[Edit]Thanks to WhatiFind's additional resources. Please check his post at #4.

Feedbacks welcomed.

 

Top quality OP from a trusted poster

 

Good read. Cheers for the advice.

 

Good post,

Some additions to your points and more tools to check:

1: Waybackmachine, to see what the website looked like before, http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

2: Backlink check ordered in IP or pagerank, very handy tool, http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/domain-popularity.html

3: With visual pagerank you are able to check several pages of the directory with one search, http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/visualpagerank.html

4/5: Also from linkvendor, how to check your outbound links, http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/outbound-links.html

6/7: nice but not the keyfactor in buying links at a directory.

(!) 8: Most important factor in buying links at a webdirectory, the relevancy of a category with the website you want to promote. Check the category to want to submit to with google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=related: then determine if the related websites displayed by google equals the websites topic you want to submit to the directory. Highly recommended to do this.

9: Featured almost always the best option to go for.

10: Deeplinks are mostly displayed on the details pages. The only thing with those detail pages is the duplicate content descriptions from the category pages. Same content only with some extra deep links. I believe the details pages will be devaluated by the search engines, unless you put more extra content to those detail pages.

Good luck with submitting to web directories!

 

Very NIce article, nicely detailed and links, very useful. i want to add a tools for checking backlinks and other details of domain, i recommend http://www.smartpagerank.com

 

great advice by both guys, thanks for that.

 

A gr8 resource!

 

Thank you very much for the tools. I find they are very handy also

I have added a link to your post, so people can see this. Green rep. for this

 

Thank you very much for this informative post.

http://backlinkwatch.com/ and http://www.digpagerank.com/ is really helpful

 

best post ever readed here .. many thx for sharing ur experience!!!

 

really good one!

 

To know the real value of a directory you can check PR of all the pages (upto 1000 )

with this

www.livepr.info/internalpagespr.php

 

Nice tool thanks for sharing..

thx
malcolm

 

I'll add something a bit more controversial, perhaps related to no 8. Assuming you are not submitting another directory, for the category you are submitting to, look how many sitewide links there are. Very often a quite empty category may have 10 or more sitewide links to other directories - presumably this makes google think it is a 'directory' related page rather than a, say, travel, related page. This I think will devalue the link.

 

Lot of different topics included in single thread in replies

anyways ..
Its nice informative guide.

Just want to add one guide tip that its
To also look at total pages indexed of that domain.

But google these days keep high number of indexed pages only of trusted domains others are dropped sooner or later.

Freewebspace < you have nice tool and different style of displaying information that webmastereyes.com tool

 

The best directory thread ever..
Should be Stickied

You should also check Google backlinks - whether banned or not.

 

I also agree. Another handy tool. Thanks for sharing it with us.

G may not be the best SE to check on backlinks, they never was. I think we would have to rely on Yahoo!
This tool below is the only one I know of to check unique domain backlinks.

http://www.linkhounds.com/link-harvester/backlinks.php

 

Very nice Info, Thanks for the Tips, will use it next time i buy link.

 

Nice post coolsitez, wanted to rep you but i should spread some rep before , its nice to see that the directories section is getting better and better, a lot of members are posting quality tips and guides recently

cheers.

 

have to say this is one of the best resource post on DP i have seen in a long while.

Kudos to you man ... very nice list ..

i do almost all while buying links in directories...

adding rep now