If you sign up to a blog catalog type site they often want you to put a bit of code onto your site, this is either in the form of html or a little widgity thing that makes a button or badge on your site... If you don't do this, they won't accept you into the catalog...? My question is how prominent does this code have to be? In other words where is it best to put it so that they can find it, but that it's out of the way. And... how long do you have to leave it up there? Can you take it down a few weeks later and still benefit from the connection, or does it have to stay up indefinitely... The thing is... I'm getting quite a collection of them on my site, and don't know what to do with 'em!
Most require their link is on the home page - looks junky and out of place there to me. Most require that they remain forever - some do checks. Most send very little traffic unless you are active in the community by thumbing up other people's posts. But, the upside is that being active often leads to comments on your blog and the ability to develop a following for your blog. I've not taken the time to do this but I have seen it happening for others. The impact of being listed varies greatly between the catalogs. It also depends upon if your site fits within a topic popular within the community. I agree with Creed about canning them but I would at least take a quick looksee at my site stats, on the off chance any of them are actually sending you some traffic. One thing that I have noticed, though I'm not sure how worthwhile it is, quite a few autoblogs use the short descriptions as blog entries and provide links to the original article location. But again, I doubt this is true for all of them and how much value such backlinks carry.
OK, thanks for the advise... I actually thought they were quite valuable, as they give you a bit of credibility... G might think you are a 'blogger' as opposed to a 'spammer'. However, as you say the only worthwhile point of having them might be the traffic, if any... that they bring. Meaning that they may well be worthless in terms of link juice. Might have to rethink that one!