Analysis of Google's Directory Penalty

I am starting to lean towards seeing it as quality issues rather than a penalty. Here is a summary of what I have found. It is important to note that it is the cumulative of multiple factors that probably get a site in trouble.

Quality Factors that probably contributed (ranked from more important to less)

1. A linking relationship between the penalized sites.
2. A high proportion of "sitewide" inbound links.
3. A large percentage of inbound links point to the site's home page.
4. Incoming link "anchor text" not distributed in a natural pattern.
5. Duplicate content within the directories.
6. Directories accumulated inbound links too fast.

Quality Factors that probably did not contribute

1. 
   Directories require a payment in order to be listed.
2. Directories have sitewide outbound links
3. The fact that they sell advertising.
4. Use of the same or similar directory script
5. Many directory owners are active members on Digital Point forum.
6. Bid for position" directories.

Factors that require investigation
Black hat attacks using proxy servers.

 

I see "A linking relationship between the penalized sites." in both?

I thought this could be one of the major factors for penalization...

 

One of those "cut and paste" errors. I have fixed it. Thanks for letting me know.

 

I'm leaning toward Google recognising the blatant link selling and manipulation of PR status, oh wait, I was already leaning that way in the first place. Come on, get real, we all know why, lets no do an autopsy as none of us really have a clue except God, and if he changes his mind in a few months time then the World will be a better place.

 

I think this should be your focus. If you can get conclusive evidence of this, then it would be an automated deal.

Was thinking they took a swipe at a few of the top directories like aviva and alive to just scare the industry kinda like a 'knock it off' manuver exept of course aviva was an exceptional and quality directory.

Between

1) Penalizing obvious purely free directories
and
2) Penalizing quality content rich directories ( already happened ).

I think it's safe to say an automated process that is probably in its infancy is in effect, also combined with this real late PR update ( they seem intertwined at least on timing ) makes it look like a much larger Hammer might be coming down.

 

That's a good point. I haven't looked at too many free directories but I'll take a closer look. If anyone has found any please pass them on.

 

It didn't take that much effort to find more free directories. I found 5 more on my own, 1 is 100% free the 4 are Free+Paid. That makes over a dozen free directories. I believe this makes it much less likely that we are talking about a manual Google penalty.


The list was getting kind of long so I put them on a separate page. See directory list. These directories have the same linking pattern as the rest (even though people have been cleaning up their links). Here is the original directory analysis.

New comments are always appreciated.