Has anyone had positive results from directory submissions alone? Or must directory submissions be coupled with social bookmarking and natural links?
I've found it to be effective, although i've never done it just on its own. For the sake of $30 a site I get them all submitted to directories.
No - directory submissions are not good for natural visitors. They are only good for backlinking. And I am more and more convinced that backlinking alone is not worthy of a rise in page-rank for google. You must show 'natural' traffic. Ie. you must show your site is attracting visitors. So, directory submission is good if coupled with something like article-writing. A good article will naturally attract visitors interested in your subject, and they also propagate themselves because a good article gets reprinted by tons of other relevant sites. Each of these sites will attract a trickle of new visitors to your site and this is what google wants to see. My link-building program does just this. We combine directory submissions and article-writing for our clients and we have been noticing fantastic results in a very short space of time. For example, this article is doing great in google. Since its submission I checked in Google's search engine for the keywords "Thailand smiles" (title of the article) and "Dynamic Blue Link" (our author name). Google has already indexed over 700 backlinks. The other thing you should be aware of is that you should concentrate on directories who have human editors. Same goes for article sites. it takes longer to get your submission published but you will be sure that you are not being linked from a spammy site, which can downgrade your site. Hope I helped. .
Thailand is changing for sure LOS is an old thing depending where you go. The big cities it doesnt hold true anymore people there are just like any other big city and not all that friendly (a few on occasion) But if you go out in the country away from it all. The people are still very friendly. Sorry if i was off topic. Back on topic.. Its never good to put all your pennies in one pot. Meaning unless you dont care much about the success of your site dont stick with one technique. Instead its best to do all of them.. including directory submissions (even new ones as they come out) article marketing (spinning articles) social bookmarking sites.. getting your article on high pr blogs, press releases, forum posting with your signature links intact and if you have the money sponsor some templates or wordpress themes.
A year or two ago I launched some sites using directory submissions alone. This was enough to get the sites indexed quite well by the major search engines. These days I use other sources of links as well.
Riatsala - When you launched those sites with directory submission alone... How many directory submissions did you do? Did you space those submissions over time, or did you do them all at once?
It varied. Each site was submitted to a minimum of 50 top quality directories over about a month. There was also some that were submitted to several hundred directories in a smaller space of time. I believe it's become more difficult to rank in the search engines since then. So for new sites I have someone submit to over a thousand directories, which usually takes a few weeks. I then do social bookmarks, article marketing etc. and gradually generate several thousand backlinks over a period of about six months.
Every link is worth having IMHO. Assuming of course that your site is worth promoting. If it's rubish, then it wouldn't be accepted into any directories anyway. The keys to getting your site accepted in web directories are: Read and obay the submission rules Submit in the most appropriate category. Don't include hype in your title/description. Create a good impression with your sites homepage (most reviewers don't look any further than that) Riatsala
That's what i always do when i have a new site. but still not sure it's effective or not. most webmasters say "yes"... i dofollow their suggestion. hope iwill see the efectiveness soon.
I had some success once I got onto DMOZ, but I don't know if this still applies. Also wikipedia was quiet good before they added the nofollow on all external links. But I still think it is a good place if you want search engine to notice your site. Other directories (paid) may also work - my site is added to Yahoo, but I have not really been able to detect any increase in traffic due to it.
About a year ago I carefully submitted a quality site to 130 directories. One year later I have... Zero backlinks in both Yahoo and Google.