There are a few things puzzling me about the paid links penalty from Google. Can somebody help clear it up for me? Am I right that if you buy a listing/link in a high pr directory that google will punish your site? Is this every directory including yahoo? Or do they just beat the pr of the directory down to the point that you have wasted your money?
If you buy a "listing," I assume you are talking about a paid submission review for a featured or regular listing. There is no penalty in that. Anyway, penalties are dished out to sites that sell links - not those that buy. However, those that buy links from penalized sites may find those links worthless for pr. If you are paying for a submission review, your ok. Just don't buy any sitewides and especially stay away from footer links. These look like paid links, and I suspect Google knows that.
How do we cull the good directories from the bad? How do we know when we pay for a "lifetime" listing that they are engaged in bad practices and this money will be wasted? Are there charactoristics that we should watch for? I understand that the green bar doesn't always tell the whole story so what does? Is there a list somewhere of penalized sites?
try find web directories owned by trsuted DP members. Paid Directories charge a review fee, its not a paid link. Google is happy with this.
I am not quiet sure about that. Directories charge a fee for review therfore the listing can not be regarded as so called paid link.