can directories be bad for you?

did anyone ever heard of a case where listing a site in a directory (a bad one obviously)
actually damaged this website's PR and SERP?

I've heard that when bad sites link to you, it can't really harm you.
because you can't really control who decides to link to you
the question is if the same thing goes with web directories?

 

It cannot really harm, I suppose.

What would harm is to get too many too quickly, since that could lead to a Sandbox.

getting links from directories help to a certain extent but not that well if you are on a competitve market, so don't spend too much time on it

 

The worst harm they can do to you is make you waste your time. They can never have a negative effect, worst that can happen is google discounts the link to 0.

 

I dont think they can hurt you persay, but they can become non valid or PR0 links, but they are still links in some regard.

 

No. As long as you put it in the right category it will never do any harm...

Time is being consumed in directory submissions...but it is worth it especially if the directory doesn\\\'t offer reciprocal links but only one way links.....

 

Directory submission is not bad, but it still depends on the directory

 

No, they dont harm you to a large extent.

If this was possible, every darn seo would be listing competition in the bad directory.

I figure, the link is just de-valued.

 

Well links are links and I see a improvement with the submission I have done over the years.

In fact i bought a DIR because so many love to submit to them that it a nice tool to help you own stuff.

I must get 100-200 links added daily

 

Didn't Google's last PR update penilize sites with massive amounts of paid links....this includes directorys.

dosn't google bowling (Black hat SEO....get your compititors banned) include paid link submissions of your compititors with the goal of doing the exact thing this post is talking about..


I am stating my responce in the form of questions because i am not 100% sure.

 

Paid Links are considered as bad by google.You can go for free directories.

 

Not sure but it may affect if you're listed in directories which are recently banned by google or which have bad neighborhood.

 

But how can Google tell if you paid for your linking or not?
and how do you know when a directorie is not good for you?

 

Directories that charge fees for 'reviewing' your site but with no guarantee of inclusion should be ok - these are not 'selling links', Yahoo directory is an example. Most of this type of directory should give you some benefit.

As to directories that are bad, then apart from how often pages are cached, pr, etc, its harder to know now without more research for a given directory url.

What I do to find a good directory is to see what backlinks show in my competitors that are directories. I then consider submitting to these - depending on price and where my link will go.

 

Some directories are good, some directories are bad. Which is which depends on the topic of your site. Namely, if the people who are in the top 10 spaces for your target keywords are in there, you should be too. In addition to just building links, it is important that your links be "relevant". If they are "relevant" to your competition, it makes sense that they are "relevant" to you as well.

The directories that the search engines consider "spam" will simply have no effect one way or another. The irrelevant directories, if you submit to too many of them, will pull you out of the "relevant" space you need to be in to get good rankings. Here is some good information to chew on...http://www.jimboykin.com/site-backlinks/

 

I think listing in directories only help in indexing of a website. Google doesn't consider it as back link and they cant give any bad effects.

 

well I think directories can't harm your site anyway!

 

so in other words:
I can just go on and list to as many directories as I want
because it to any harm, only good (if I'm lucky, and it's a good one).
And the only bad thing that can happen for me is just a bit of time wasting
(that might be worth it)?

correct me if I'm wrong plz

 

http://www.dewittsmedia.com/seo-blogs/directories/do-web-directories-carry-value-anymore/

you ask me I think they still help, there not going to hurt some of them might lost there value, but for the most part there still passing link juice. Maybe not as much, but just watch what directories you submit to.

 

Google recommends directory submissions.

 

Inbound links are pretty much always a good thing