Hi, I have been reading through some of the threads and one post said that submitting to directories is not the way to go as in the future they will be seen as link farms and you will be penalised, is there any truth in this? Also as far as I am aware all the the directories I submit to are respectable, but how do I actually know if it's a links farm? just so I can avoid them. Thanks Dee
Some are good, some are very very bad. Before submiting to directories i always check for: pr, alexa rank, and how much pages are in google index ... if this values are low, i do not submit.
Does everyone check all the above info for every directory they submit too?? Also what happens if you submit to a site that you believe to be decent and respectable and it turns out not to be? Thanks Dee
Google would never penalize you for being listed in a directory because your competitors could easily submit your site to a few thousand directories. It's not a rocket science.
Submitting to a directory won't hurt you. Where you need to be careful is where your site links out to. Be sure to verify the quality of any other site you link to.
Submitting to directories really won't harm you. People (like me) have only been penalised for building thousands of links too quickly.
GOOD directories are few and far between. Even with the best script a good amount of SEO work needs to be done by the owner. Then the owner has to promote it so that it draws regular traffic as well as (painfully at times) go through each link one by one and evaluate them all. Some pointers - If the directory is empty, save your time. - If the directory is essentially a DMOZ clone, save your time. - If you browse through a few sections and find blatant spam, MFA or other junk... save your time. Your site is who you associate it with. I've seen some PR1- PR2 directories worth more to webmasters submitting links than a PR7 site (index only, NO internal page gets pagerank) CHOOSE CAREFULLY !
As per usual, what was probably a well intentioned post from a forum member, has actually turned into a misleading statement. You would not be penalised for submitting to directories (many people do it, the same as many people also advertise). However, if those sites offering the links turn out to be *bad* sites, and are penalised, then any benefit that you did derive from those sites before the penalty, you wouldn't derive after the penalty. So the time you spent submitting to those directories, would be lost... Look at their latest listings, or check out a few of their popular categories (Travel, Real Estate, Business). If they are full of spammy/junk listings (i.e. they are accepting almost everyone) then they are a link farm. A directory requires editing, cataloguing, and work. A link farm doesn't bother to filter the good sites from the bad sites, they just add anything that gets submitted to them. The metrics provided are actually less of an indicator of quality in a directory than the actual content/listings within a directory. As stated above, check out popular cats or latest listings - if there is a significant amount of junk within a directory then its more likely to be tagged as a link farm than one that has little or no junk. Then you've wasted your time... But the same could be said of investing in a bank. Look at the current situation in the US. At least in the directory industry the worst investment that you will lose is the time that you spent submitting. You can't know everything about every site. Just make sure you do some research before submitting, and you will minimise the time that you waste. I actually disagree with this. Evaluating can be a very fast process if you know what to look for. For instance, you only need to skim a latest listings section to see if there is any spam. Ok, that method isn't foolproof, but if there is spam in the latest listings section then no more evaluation is required. I can rule out probably anywhere between 50-80% of directories by that one method alone.
Sorry i do not know what your want to say. Could you please be more precise. I submit to directories this way, but it is true that directories present 5% of my seo optimization.
There are always good and bad directories, do a little research of it when submitting your site to the directory
HI What is a link farm... and if there was such a thing.. what would stop your competitors submit your website link to 1000's of link farms to get you penalized in google... ? Tom