Is Listing In Directories Worth The Bother?

Is listing one's site in all these directories really worth the time investment? I have no idea myself, thus the question.

Would anyone like to explain why they list their site in directories?

And, whatever your goal is, how do you track the results, so you have some idea whether you are achieving your goal?

Thanks for any discussion.

 

Yes, as you will want/need the links to your site.

I suggest you get about 200 directory links as maximum as this is enough for good traffic to find you. It's pointless submitting to everything as:

1. They won't all supply targeted traffic
2. Submit to too many and it will only waste your time for little return
3. Many don't deliver much traffic anyway eg: 1 or 2 hits per month maximum
4. Many are set up to rip you off
5. Some belong to networks and are penalised by Google
6. Your contact details will get sold on, leading to spam

 

Ok, thanks for your reply.

I know we all need links, but why directory links?

It sounds like there is little to no direct traffic.

Do we have any evidence of an SEO benefit? If I was google I would simply ban all directory sites from my pagerank calculations, as directory listings aren't really a "vote" of quality from a real user.

I'm not trying to argue, I really don't know. What precisely is the benefit of a directory listing?

 

Is there a list of directories that sell your details on?

 

if your site is listed on 1000+ directories with different anchor texts and if you get 1-2 hits / month from each then it turns out 2000 visitors / month, which is quite good.

I believe that directory sends very less traffic, but gives you a valuable backlink and more backlinks also means higher serps.

However it is advised to use many anchor texts while going for directory submissions to avoid google's sandbox penalty.

 

Not as far as I know, but I got enough telesales calls to know they got my details from someone else. Back in the early days I spent much time submitting to directories, it was at that time I started to get a lot of phone calls from businesses eg: Travel, Offers companies, SEO services etc, trust me you'll know when it happens to you.

Also sales staff search directories extracting the information - a lot of it goes on.

 

I have two words for why people list in directories: anchor text.

 

I tend to think that it can't hurt, and if you use proper anchor text, it might even help a bit. I'd try to make sure that your submitting to relevant directories though, if for no other reason than better targeting.

 

My personal experience is that I've been able to get long tail hits with directory submissions. In addition, if I have a page that has good page rank, but doesn't rank high for a particular keyword term I can boost the term in the serps by finding some related directories and getting some back links from them with variations of the term I'm targeting in the anchor text.

What I like to do is to build a keyword list, get a free directory list, and then spend 15 minutes a day submitting my site. After 4 to 6 months I take a look at the keywords giving my site hits (especially from page 2 and 3 of google). Then I make up another keyword list based on my findings. I start submitting using those keywords. It's a long term strategy that has paid off for me.