It's official Google has opened up a can of whoop ass on directories

I'm no guru but its just what I think is happening.

In the last year I've seen 1,000++ web directories started all with phpLD, most of them are crap. I think about 90% of those phpLD directory owners are running a paid directory = no additional quality = removed.

Again I'm no Google expert and I'm sure they will not ignore web directories in the index, but I can tell it's going to change, and soon.

The words on the street about the search results in google are terrible and I believe they are trying to get the index clean again.

Duplicate content, affiliate links/websites, lower quality paid (web) directories, MFA, all of these websites will be removed from the index. Trust me this will be the nr. 1 priority of google to stay ahead of the competition. They are fighting it for years now and I believe they have found new methods to detect these websites.

Already universities in Germany and France are spending 100+ milions of dollars in new search techniques, Google is feeling/hearing this and they need to stay ahead and clean the index.

I believe thats what is happening now.

 

My directory seems to be raising in the rankings, maybe because it is a custom built one.

 

I doubt that google cares about which script you use to run your directory.
Its how you run it rather than what runs it.

 

Too slow

 

I would like to know the difference between Yahoo Directory and any of ours...

 

Yep...good to see that at least.

Dirsensei, Romow, Gii are still up there for the keyword "web directory"...

It seems like those directories are not being affected by this sudden change. Any ideas why?

 

Don't know. My search is seeing my directory in the top 5!!

Gotta love that!!

Col

 

Haha, congrats to you.

 

This has been pointed out a number of times on the thread, but the most well-established and well-known paid directory on the web is that which is owned by Yahoo.

According to Cutts Google doesn't like paid directories, but these have been an element of the net for a long time now.

No, they may not like them, but I can't see what they can do about them.

I'm not saying that they won't act - or that they can't - but I just don't think it is likely.

 

My own experience is up & down...

Up:
For Jooomla, I've been targetting SEO directory & General SEO Directory as the 2 keywords for some time now. On a Google UK search, the former has moved up from position #11 to #8, on the later, I'm still #1 and have been for some time.

Down:
Blendz has been dropped like a ton of hot coals.

Conclusion:
There is none I can draw from this right now, apart from the fact that Jooomla is a regular directory and Blendz is a bidding directory. I'm not sure much can be read into that at this moment.

 

I thought it was paid links, bought to artificially increase PR they didn't like. Paid directories are not a problem if the payment is for the review and not the listing.

 

It's not about the script. It's about a paid (low quality) web directory and how to detect it.

 

Oh i thought you were talking that phpld is a sign of paid web directory, just want to clear on exactly what were you talking about in this statement :

Originally Posted by WhatiFind
And you might want to think about removing the tags like: <meta name="generator" content="PHP Link Directory 3.1.0" />

This makes it really easy to detect you're running a (paid) web directory.

 

The trouble with forums like this and we all fall into the trap is - We speak like we understand totally Google, instead of posting things like,,, in my opinion etc etc

The truth is no one knows what is going on, of course there will be plenty of speculation.

 

I still have over 1000 pages indexed. No worries...

 

The phrases "low quality" and "high quality" get bandied around quite a bit around here. If people can't figure out the difference, how will Google's algo?

 

Yahoo directory belongs to a billion dollar company that doesn't worry about page rank, or what Google thinks of it.

 

They aren't the only one. I haven't used the Google ToolBar in 2 years to look up PageRank. I'm sure not all directory operators care.