Got to say I believe this is a very poor tactic by webmasters. Any directory with site wide links I believe are devaluing any link juice being passed by there links. Why don’t you just sell links on home page only? This would allow you to gain the extra income and maintain your ‘authority’ in google.
G is not the lord and master of the directory market never was and never will be Directory Owners understand that a directory is a complex matrix and G is just a part of that matrix We cater to other alliance partners internet users and websites who submit to our directories We do endeavor to provide the best service for our clients and visitors,and allowing G to distort and effect our service is not part of our scope of supply
Nobody can prove anything here but take a look here http://www.seobook.com/archives/001583.shtml The guy at links juice got it right - he just sold links of his home page.
It is a service the directory owners to their customers. The link partners benefit from the sitewide links while the owner gets well needed income to promote the directory. Remember most of the webmasters invest the money back to promote the directory they own. The whole purpose of promoting the directory is to provide the best value to the clients.
I think sitewide links should be kept to a minimum and must be relevant too. But they are a very tempting way to raise funds, they will also help keep the submission price down. I'm sure quality directories like forplex invest alot of the money raised from sitewides back into the directory with unique features and content.
Sitewide links or “ROS†run of service links are very dangerous for a directory. At one time they were a good source of marketing income but with today’s Google you need to use javascript or rel=nofollow tags or face being delisted by Google.
"G is not the lord and master of the directory market never was and never will be Directory Owners understand that a directory is a complex matrix and G is just a part of that matrix We cater to other alliance partners internet users and websites who submit to our directories We do endeavor to provide the best service for our clients and visitors,and allowing G to distort and effect our service is not part of our scope of supply" Well said british. Directories are a very low-cost source of relevant links and even if they are just passing on a little juice and helping with your keywords they are very valuable.
I completely agree with the bad effect of sitewides on your sites. You invest to a lot to get the PR you want then pass a great chunk of it to sitewides. Google can do nothing about link buying but is now after link selling. And what is more obvious than selling sitewides. (your site can't be powered by 10 or 20 scripts). During this last update, some sites that are linked to, sitewide from very few sites gained PR higher than all those sites. EDIT: why do you think that forums.dp lost PR? eventhough its organic backlinks keep growing. It is because of all those signature links. Probably this is what matt cutts talked about lately.
I don't have any problems selling sitewide links on my directory (in fact, I already did!), I got a higher PR in the recent update.
"And what is more obvious than selling sitewides." - Selling directory listings in general is a lot more obvious than selling sitewides, check any submission page. It does not matter if you call it a 'review fee', if G cracks down on all paid link selling you can expect paid directories to take a big hit.
Sitewides i believe can have an affect on the website selling sitewides itself but in my case it was a bit different, i gained PR Its not all about selling sitewides, when you sell sitewides you must arrange for a backup in the form of other links that point to your directory and that is what matters alot, in my opinion
90% webmaster sell their sitewide link on directory, except very few. they work very hard to get PR once they they sell some sitewide link to get some cash, so they can promote, nothing wrong with it.
think about how many links you have to buy to make up for that sitewide you sold. It doesn't make sense to me that you purchase links and strive to gain higher PR then just waste it for a small monthly fee.
I don't sell site wide links on the link directories we run. they have a small amount of advertising on it - but we are looking to change it. one site we just put together http://www.openadp.com - we are still trying to figure out how to stream line the site and make it more user friendly.
Got a red rep saying 'nonsense' - got a green rep saying 'very true'! I think the thing you notice here is that the people arguing the case for selling site wide links are the ones selling them!
I think we should increase the price of homepage/sitewide links and everyone will benefit. The greedy ones will be hacked! muhauahuahauh