Directory Penalization Questions

Greetings,

I was considering creating a directory for my client's real estate website.

Right now, we just have a links page that is unorganized. Putting links into directory categories and subcategories would help organize everything.

I have a few questions that I really need answered before releasing this directory.

1. I have read many articles stating that google penalizes websites for selling links. Why is this? I see many websites sell advertising space. Do all of these websites get penalized?

2. I see some directories ask webmasters to place a recipricol link back to their directory. Are recipricol links considered paid links?

3. Having a real estate website, are there certain websites I should not link to aside from link farms?

4. I want google and other major search engines to see my directory as legitimate and a valuable resource to visitors. Do you have any suggestions?

Thanks to all those who respond.

Sincerely,
Travis Walters

 

According to Google - yes.. If you use "nofollow" then you will not..
But you are not selling links, you are creating a niche site and taking payment to review the submissions.

No... but same as above..

better go for related things

Make it unique, content-full..

 

Google doesn't penalize you for selling links or advertising on any site!!! They request that if you get into doing such things that you properly disclose your sponsors and that you use nofollow attribute, javascript or other similar approaches when placing your link.

You are asked to do this because as you may or may not know, one of google's main variables for assigning pagerank (importance of a page) or allocating high SERPs is based on inbound links. They are trying to prevent people from going out there and buying endless amounts of links to improve their pagerank or serps.

Failure to follow these guidelines will result in a penalty, however following these guidelines will be fine.

Traditionally reciprocal links were accepted as a method of endorsing each others site. But once again since Google relies heavily on inbound links many webmasters have being abusing this type of strategy and google frown upon using excessive reciprocal linking. It is not really considered a paid link.

You should not be linking to any site that shows a lack of editorial control. For example don't link to sites that contain, for the most part, duplicate content. Try to link to trade associations and other industry leading sites. You may also want to see where these sites link to in order to get a better understanding of what a good site maybe.

Link to what makes sense to link to and that is relevant to your site. The fact that your directory is a segment of a bigger site is a step to the right direction. Just make sure that you provide valuable, original and relevant content through out your site. Do not engage in buying links. Give people reasons to visit your site today, tomorrow and the next day. Give people reasons to link to you. eg: publish "how to" articles that are unique and helpful. There are endless things you can do.


Hope this helps!!! Good luck Travis!

 

Hey there,

I wanted to personally thank everybody that responded.

There were some really great replies and I understand directories a lot better now. At first, I was afraid to get involved with one on this site, but now I feel better about doing so.

I believe these resources for the site will make a great addition to what we already have.

Reputation to those who have responded. Once again, great replies and many thanks!

Sincerely,
Travis Walters

 

feel free to add your site to my real estate company directory and ignore the paypal part when you get there, no need to reciprocate.

Don't do excessive link exchange or anything that doesn't make sense, since this can happen.

 

Hi,
This message is for all directory owners. If you know any directory owners please forward this message to them.

Google is removing pages from google index of directories which
are not listing sites in relevant categories. Many high page
rank directories are putting site links in wrong categories.
This is giving wrong results in google search. Here are few
examples to understand this. A site was selling motorcycle stunt
DVDs. Many directories have given link to that site in
"Motorcycle" category which is not correct as a site selling
DVDs should go to DVD category only. While some other directory
owners have put that site in "electronics" category. Though DVDs
come under electroics but a site sellig DVD must go into DVD
category only. so directory owners must create deeper categories
and put sites in relevant categories only. Dmoz directory is a
perfect example of that. If a directory page title is
"automotive" then you must list sites on that page related to
"automotive" only. You even cannot list a site related to "cars"
in automotive category. You must create a sub category "car"
under automotive to list sites related to cars.
If a site is selling motorcycle stunt DVDs and if a high page
rank site put that site in "motorcycle" category this is going
to give wrong results in search results of google. That site
will come higher in google when someone will search "motorcyle"
which is not good because that site is selling DVDs(motorcylce
stunt) and not motorcycles. So directory owners have to be very
careful while listing sites in their directory otherwise google
will take action. Also a directory must not give spammy keywords in title. Title must always be company name or domain name. Dmoz is not fool to give title as company name.

All the best!

 

You don't think Google's algo can figure out that car and automotive mean the same thing?

 

I agree above Googles algo may or may not configure based on how Yahoo and MSN is looking at it lol

 

haha nice one

 

nice..first time ive seen that

 

really i hav aslo seen it first time