I am confused here, does Google penalize if your link is in a link directory or if you site has a link directory? What is your link directory on your site is for good purpose?
If Google penalize for directory submissions, I would be glad to submit my competitors' sites for free So I doubt it very much. Not sure what would happen if your site has a link directory, some of the directory owners could tell us.
it depends on the page content where your link is. for example if your site is about cars and you have a link on a page about cloth google will not give such a big interest to that link. This is only my opinion. the answer only google can tell you
Link directories are not really penalised by google because the links are usually classified in topics and link pages are limited on the number of links. This means they are not considered a link farm by google.
Not exactly. I've seen before high PR directories with good ranking so I don't think they get penalized for any reason.
Yahoo makes a lot off their directory, so I hope they aren't penalizing and charging at the same time.
You have two questions there and both of them have the same answer. No you don't get penalized As zexy said, if getting links from directory could result into penalization. Everyone would stop promoting their sites and concentrate on submitting my competitor's site to 1000s of directories !! Secondly, having a directory in your website *used to* be a great way of getting reciprocal links to your homepage but in recent times reciprocal links have lost their value. I still see people using three way link-building using these link directories. You can also build a niche directory and provide a great resource for your users but link directories won't get penalized by google unless you start accepting all kind of sites
Normally Google don't penalize for directories links, otherwise no one on Services forums on DP will be selling Manula submission. as mentioned by catapop Means that in directory submission you have to mention related category for better SERP. Then my opinion it's a Great way for free backlinks.
Just make sure the links in the directory on your site are relevant and useful to your visitors. Don't create a link directory on your site with thousands of unrelated reciprocal links or you may find yourself in trouble with Google.
I don't see that they penalize you for having them on your site if you are judicious about who you link to. In fact I think a well organized directory especially a niche directory can really be seen as a plus to a site user and can easily get them to bookmark that page and keep visiting your site.