Im wondering if AmericasBest.com is banned by Google. I type in the domain name and it doesn't show. Just a little puzzled because this directory is rated as one of the strongest directories around, and they have a ton of backlinks. Do you think linking to them will hurt your rankings at all?
http://www.google.com/search?&q=info:www.AmericasBest.com Doesn't look banned to me. Even if they were banned, linking to a few banned sites shouldn't hurt - it's when you link primarily to a large percentage of bad sites that problems arise. I wouldn't worry about it.
Doing a site:AmericasBest.com on google you get a clear verdict that AmericasBest.com is not banned. They have a bit over 200 links indexed by Google, obviously not a satisfactory number considering a directory that claims to have been up there since 1997...
According to Internet Archive, it appears that they have been around since at least 1998. The directory looks like its been up since 2001. They have 39 backlinks from .edu's and 5 from .gov's. Maybe they are not banned by Google, but I do believe they may be penalized in some way. In most cases, when you type in a company's domain name through any search engine, they are normally the first one listed considering you have some backlinks. Yahoo and MSN both show AmericasBest.com for #1 when you type in "americasbest". But when you type it in through Google, none of their webpages show at all.