Yes -- SEO is all about traffic and ranking. I termed Rand Fishkin & SEOMOZ as unethical because --they should not blog about something based on false facts -. Matt has explained the real essense of whitehat SEO-- HERE. He never said you should abuse some-one to get traffic and links. Rand & SEOMOZ have been practising BLACKHAT SEO since their inception-- which has been illustrated HERE
Now that is some advice that I can really get behind BTW - After Michael's criticism, I did realize the complete hypocrisy of owning a crummy directory like SOCEngine - we've shut it down so no new submissions are accepted. My feeling is that it hasn't been valuable in at least 2 years, maybe longer. I'm still of the opinion that most general directories, particularly those promoted in the SEO world as link building tools provide little to no value for rankings, but as has been said many times on this thread - there's no reason that my opinion should be taken as gospel truth. If it works for you and you like buying links from directories, go for it. I just use my blog to share my experiences, which have been that general directories generally suck for boosting rankings. I would hope and assume that anyone here would also share their experiences honestly, as they've seen them. It doesn't mean my advice is for everyone.
So if promoted directories dont boost your rankings, what do? There are few "acceptable" ways of gaining links, so fi directories are useless, what isn't?
The only acceptable links are those handed out voluntarily by well-respected, PR7-PR10 sites. C'mon, just have patience!
Search Engine Rankings are not based on quality of the information that a website has.It is only based on some rude algorithim which does not indicate a quality of website. SE's only throw relevant results and not quality results. Any one can achieve top rankings in SE's provided that they do SEO and link building very well.But that's not the case with directories , Directories indicate a quality of a website.A site listed in 1000 directories would be of better quality than a site which got listed in less no of directories. So it is the directories which indicate a quality of a website to Search Engines and not SEO. SEO's can be termed as another kind of QBC as their aim is to get top rankings for a client's website irrespective of quality of the website.
Thats good of you. And yes--that directory was nothing but crap--because it was not properly maintained and promoted. On the other hand -- Aviva Directory - is one of the most professionally maintained and edited directory on the web. Jeff has hired professional editors to edit sites. No problem for me to accept this fact as this is partially true. My problem is with your methodology. If we judge directories with it-- the result is not the same. I do not think a well SEOed directory which ranks very high for hundreds of words -- can offer better link value than Yahoo Directory ( by link value -I mean the weight given by Google bots to a link)-- that has been replaced by many directories for most keywords. Simple and easy-- Yahoo Directory does not do SEO -- while other directories do it. Do you accept this? Thats not fair mate - not all SEOs are without ethics. We also have QBCs among directory owners - After reading SMACKDOWN blog post and Realestatewebmasters discussions - I have serous doubt about the SEO style Mr. Rand follows. I believe he -can never do a job without a touch a BLACKHAT.