I have a couple of sites that are a few years old and have PR of 4 and 5 respectively but only have around 30 backlinks according to Google, they do have a couple of links from huge sites though. Could submission to directory and article sites do any harm or would I be better avoiding this and altogether?
if what you say above is true then it is ok to submit to directories and article sites at the same time. don't go overboard and get thousands at the same time.
A link is a link. Doesn't matter if it comes from an unrelated site or related one. The only thing which does matter is the quality of the links and the speed of the links. If I were you, I wouldn't submitted to 1000 in one day. Just build up slowley.
Link can never hurt your site. If that was the case your competitors could put thousands of spammy links to your site and hurt you.
Getting good quality links at this stage will help you a lot. Now you can focus on getting links from directories and article submission sites using the desired anchor texts that you want.
As has been said by others , don't worry about submitting them to directories , the onl;y thing you have to do is to be a bit cautious.
Submitting to directories won't hurt your site. Directories are a way to get medium quality links for a nice ROI (return on investment). Just remember to make things look natural, get a mix of links: low (not bad), medium, and the ocassional high quality one. 300 is a good number.
high quality links are the way to go, if you can get backlinks from a pr4+ site then it will only increase your traffic/PR
That depends on the your site and the topic as Matts put it. But If was you I would have gone slower the first month. Lets say only 100, and then go for 300 or enve more the following months. If you read some of my other posts in this forum, you can get the impression that I like to take risk when it comes to SEO, but I'm only suggesting the methods that have worked for me and my clients.
Not at all. You can't control who links to you. Directory submissions are great as long as they are not reciprocal directories
I think you must read this thread as well... http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=215167#post2077840 Post number 10 has confused me quite a bit. Bye
directory submission will help you improve your link popularity...it is better to have one way links...you can also have a reciprocal link with relevant, quality and trusted sites...
No, article sites help a lot, but depends on the quality of site because some directories and article sites can be a bad neighborhood that can drop your rankings and sometimes, it may lead you to SE ban.