Is directory submission a good way for link building in 2016?

The main point of directory submission was to get back links (lots of them). And since there were lots of (useless, no-value) online directories and article directories, people used software submit the same link/info to all the thousands of directories and they submitted the same article to thousands of article directories.

That worked extremely well, 10 years ago when Google and other search engines rewarded you for (spam, that is ...) the 'quantity' of the links pointing back to your site. It no longer works. The search engines and mostly Google now penalize such spam, finally!

What Works Now ...

• Forget cheap link building
• Contribute to whatever topic that interests you by 'adding value' ... you can do this in Social Media, in main stream media (by writing for them something new not rehashed old stuff) but do this in specific sections e.g. CNN Technology or marketing sections.
  
• Focus on quality and become known as an 'authority' on that subject
  
• Do not try to pass yourself off as authority on a subject just because some client is paying a few dollars to raise their search rank
• After writing some good content (including videos and podcasts, if you wish), create report of some of your content - focused on one topic of course - and give it away with the rights (& encouragement) for others to pass it on to other people without spamming them. Over a period of time, if your content is of high quality, your report spreads and your header or footer links in the report get clicked ... this becomes a steady source of traffic that you cannot turn off even if you tried
• Repeat with more reports
  
• Make sure your links and offers in the reports do NOT try to SELL but offer more value (more info, more help) when they click thru to your target site.
  
• In each report offer the option to the reader to click thru to your target site to collect the other reports on that topic .. specify what exactly they will gain/learn from the other reports.
  
• This method is called "the network effect" ... your reports promote each other and they call promote your target site. The more reports (promoting your other reports & site) the bigger your network and the more powerful your network effect. When people google a keyword for that topic or when they Google the author or the site, these reports show all over the web (remember others will be distributing them too) ... you drown out the competition. You will be seen as the foremost authority ... hey everyone else is referring or offering your reports too, right?!
• This takes what? "FOCUS" ... online success is not a hit and run job anymore (thank god). It is becoming a process of offering quality by true experts.

I hope this helps.
Samo

 

Very few offer this as an option - due to the many auto spam tools available. The content management systems are more than enough to block every submission. The free ride is over and you must now pay or kiss goodbye to any low cost promotion, and many businesses will be killed off due to this.

Exactly, it fails on too many levels to be worth the trouble. Forget free links - the big free ride ended years ago - Google ended spam, spam is stupid... Best way forward is to select 100 sites manually by visiting each one, checking/asking what the traffic levels is like, and negotiate a link. Please bear in mind you better have something to barter with or forget a free ride.

Only other option is to pay what they want and just accept it, as you wont get in for free, no matter how much one cries or rages about it.

 

Google said that backlinks from quality directories gave a boost, but I'm sure it's not that much.

 

I don't know if they said that as theres no real proof of a 'reward for amount of backlinks' but if its true, then that only encourages spamming to get higher SERPS placement.

Either way - the manipulation of positioning by spam will be caught, so any boost awarded is minimal and the practise of rankings boost is breaking their own rules. See Google manipulates
its own results anyway - to make people buy adwords PPC, so Google is actually giving something temporarily, then taking it away the next by penalties....

I've never heard of any website being penalised to the extent of hurting it to the point of failure or going bust. It just wouldn't happen - all the SERPS are is control, and that's it.