MSN Directory - 18 links per submission & high PR

$99 bought us a year listed in the MS directory for 3 separate domains.

Each domain now has 3 links in 3 appropriate directory categories. Most PR 4 or PR 5 with only a few links. Also 2 PR0s due to 1 - 2 - 3 > next etc. page apparently not getting any PR passed on. It seems to list the links in order of entry so this won't improve.

Apart from the 3 links under the site's description, it also has the site's title as a link above it. And furthermore I chose the free option of adding a 'business card' to each entry which allowed for another 6 links for each domain.

On the business card page there are actually 3 + 6 + 1(title) links. (Off the top of my head, might be more...)

I checked current listed sites and the links do show up in the list of backlinks (for what it's worth being on that list).

Main categories are spidered lots. Some categories deeper down have just one entry and PR4.

Apart from all that, we also got access to all other small business services like SE submission, SEO analysis and loads more (haven't checked all of it yet, too much!).

 

Sounds like MSN is following the business.com directory model; where you get 4 links plus your main link with your listing, just for less of a price. When MSN;s engine is in full swing, paying to be in their directory can't be a bad thing

 

I just signed up for the directory listing with MSN. As usual, MSN is very unclear about things.

If you buy in for $99, you get 100 URLs and 10 Sites.

If you add your site to the directory, can you have 100 listings for individual pages in a single URL, or can you have 1 listing for the URL and the 10 links (4 main, 6 on the business card). I submitted 3 different sites today, so will see how it goes.

I found the optimization program to be severely lacking. It spidered my sites fine, but didn't quite understand that each page is targetted to a different keyword set, so only the home page was optimized correctly, the others I had to manually go in and tell it they were okay to submit.

If you buy in, take a look at the directories they submit you to. According to a site that lists directories by PR (i cant remember its URL right now) etc; jayde (the highest PR of those listed), doesn't even transfer PR to sites in its directory, so whats the point of a listing there at all?

 

I had a look again after adding 3 sites to the directory. They are stiil there but none of my URL quotum of 30 had gone. So i had a sniff around and noticed the 30 is for URL sumissions to search engines. I can't find a max for directory submissions so might sneak another few in to test.

the URL SE submission is a nightmare. Takes about 5 minutes per PAGE!!! and a lot longer if you adhere to there optimization recommendations. And once submitted, you have to click a few buttons again for that one page/URL.

Signing up for 30 URLS / 90 bucks sound cheap but do budget for 100 manhours submission time!

 

Cheap linking/spidering compared to Yahoo and Business.com. And it's immediate, so that puts it $49 worth of value ahead of DMOZ in my book.

 

You get a profile page with lots of anchor text and direct links. I usually submit all of my sites to Jayde for that reason. (See the page in my profile for an example.)

 

It will be interesting to see what kind of profile they give this directory - and what traffic comes from it.

Either way I'm satisfied with the links for now.

 

Very nice! Do they pass pr or help your allinanchor? I've read that jayde doesn't count for anything, so I haven't really paid attention to it, but I have to admit, that is a nice little profile page.

 

Hell o Johann.
>Do they pass pr
Once PR works down to your (newly created) profile page. It will never be much, the value of a Jayde listing is the large amount of quality anchor text. I'm quite happy with the new format. (Before the links were all redirects and the only benefit was the visitor or two a month.)

 

I'm thinking of signing up. So, that's a total of nine categories for the three sites?

 

Yes and Yes - as usual though, check exactly what page you will be on to see the pr (some categories have three pages).

 

Yes it is indeed.

 

Me too, this sounds very good

 

My friend just asked me about this, and it can be confusing. The directory submission is tied to their SumitIt! semi-automated submission service. You need to pay close attention to the URL submissions and the directory listings, since they are very different.

A directory listing is just that, and if that's all you want it's about $30 each if you get more than one. This is not bad for a PR4 link for a year if you look at it that way.

The URL submissions should each be for a page on the same site, or each for a separate site, if it works like it used to. So if you get 30 you can submit the home page of 30 sites. If that's not true it's changed and please let me know.

The Submitit submissions are ok, and worth about what you pay for them. I think you can get the same if not better over at selfpromotion.com and you can just donate to them. You will learn much more acurate info on seo and submissions over there as well, in my opinion, but if you want the easiest time of it, go with submitit.

Now, has anyone seen any traffic from the directory? I mean humans and not bots? Please let us know if you have. This thing has a long way to go to become a DMOZ or even some of the small directories. If you try looking for things, you may not find anything, never a good sign. Also, check out their back links in Alexa and Google... it looks a bit fishy to me. And the traffic graphs in Alexa are also interesting and not what you would expect, even though they are for the entire domain and not just the directory.

My opinion is that if you want a cheap PR4 link to your site for a year, jump on it. You get the added bonus of playing with the submitit submission system. But if you are shelling out $30 and expect to get much traffic from the directory itself, I think you may be disappointed.

If anyone wants a free list of search engines to submit to, get in touch with me and I'll get you a copy of our hand submission list.

 

My highest PR backlinks (including DMOZ) doesn't show in backlinks in Google, so what's the problem with BlueFind, MSN or others? My website is still a PR4. 3 months ago the PR5 page that gave me that PR value doesn't appear in G Backlinks... It still doesn't appear.

 

google hasnt done a pr update in about 5 months - thats why your still a 4, as am I

 

Here- first result

 

It was 3 months, but yes, the page that gave me my PR4 didn't appeared in BL's... Now the PR was updated and still those pages doesn't appear, and i'm sure when a new BL update happens those websites (with PR5 that give me that ranking) will not appear.

 

I submitted to bCentral's directory with a client whose ONLY concern was to get listed in MSN. This was April 2004. My directory listing went up, business card, everything but a listing in MSN. I submitted 29 URLs, all of which I went back and optimized according to the bCentral way, which, BTW, is not saying anything about what MSN is looking for. Through repeated conversations with bCentral and MSN, I was told that bCentral is not an MSN service, merely a seperated company paying for the cobrand. bCentral has ZERO control over actually getting listed, all they do is submit. TO this day, my very highly ranked website in every other search engine, has ZERO presence in MSN.
So... if your goal is an MSN listing, I suggest looking elsewhere. I am still looking for a reliable way to get a listing in MSN.

 

I just finished a review of the directory at: http://www.websubmissionking.com/microsoft-small-business-directory.htm

I have it ranked #1 in my Paid Directory List so I would say it is worth the $49.

Positives:
- Good PR
- you get a bunch of different links

Negatives
- time consuming entry process
- they have a 15,250 word Terms of Service document