The Directory Industry is Unique so Let's use that to our Advantage

I respect you as well. There is absolutely nothing wrong with debating constructively and without the traditional name calling. I also agree that it is important to substantiate one's claims.

Matt Cutts post on How to report paid links lays out some good foundation on distribution of penalties in transaction based links. Google has been eying paid links for a while and unfortunately most directories are engaged in such practices. Most were also created as a venue for webmaster to increase their PR and IBLs which is a clear violation of Google's TOS. Matt also openly shared his thoughts on directories here in DP.

It is also important to realize that there is a clear differentiation between a penalty and a ban. You may be assessed a penalty which in itself means that your site has been flagged, but will continue to be crawled and continue to rank for certain keywords but at the same time it is an indication or warning by Google to clean up your act.

It it easier to determine if a directory is engaged in selling links than a blog. As soon as you start promoting "SEO friendly links", "5 deeplinks" etc on your directory it starts to raise flags and becomes very easy for google to algorithmically detect those sites as potential breaches of their TOS. Many of the paid links making themselves into blogs are harder to detect and are disguised significantly better than directory links.

Google is not preventing anyone from making a living selling advertising! They encourage it, what they are saying is:

"you know our PR and SERPs algorithms depend heavily on in bound links, please help us maintain the integrity of such by clearly disclosing your sponsors by using nofollow, javascript or redirects to eliminate any possibility of ill effecting our index. Failure to do so MAY result in penalties."

Bottom line is if you want to be on google and take advantage of its current reach we have to abide by their rules. If one thinks that its not important to follow these rules and can make a go of it in other SEs that don't have a SERPs algo with emphasis on links then you are free to do so. Remember its their SE, they can dictate what is acceptable and what is not.

Hope this clears up my comments!

 

I don't agree that paid links are easier to detect on directories, since Matt has stated that submitting to relevant directories that charge a review fee is ok. I don't believe Gooogle has the resources nor the desire to start rating every single directory to see if they are using proper and acceptable review criteria, so my assumption is they either they will penalize all paid directories or none for actually taking review fees.

Now buying links for those same directories is another story but again it is very hard to prove and gooogle would be biting the hand that feeds them if they just started dishing out bans and penatlies based on what they 'think' people are doing.

Gooogle says it is ok to sell links as long as they use 'no follow' but that IMO is similar to when Microsoft said you can just remove their pre-instsalled web browser with one or two clicks and that got them a beat-down in court.

I agree with you that gooogle does not want folks buying and selling links that effect PR and SERPs but how, if and can they stop people is another story. I don't believe the recent 'mythical' penalties have anything to do with it. At worst I think they are trying to devalue certain types of links in a blanket fashion.

And just to touch on the 'report paid links' Matt was clear that these reports at this point would be used to test new algorithms and not for penalties. I know he gives some blatant penalty examples but I think those pre-dated the reporting feature and were seperate.

 

simply checking a submitted site to see if it is an MFA site or porn/gambling site does not constitute a valid review. A review is defined as:

... a piece of writing that discusses the author's opinion on a piece of publication, such as a movie, video game, musical composition, or novel. In addition to the verbalized opinion there may also be a formalized assessment; for instance, the author may assign the work one to five stars to indicate its relative merit. More loosely, an author may review current events or items in the news. A compilation of reviews may itself be called a review. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Review

Most directories do not engage in the proper process of reviewing sites.

the "nofollow" attribute is a method of distinguishing between truly endorsed links and those where there is a monetary gain involved. It is a guideline set out by Google. You are not comparing apples to apples.

Why would they want to "devalue certain types of links"?

Could be BUT we know that Google actively looks at eliminating spam and improving their SERPs. Most directory implementations are designed to game google and google may have decided to act on it and thus the penalties. I'm sure that some of the links are also no longer passing the mojo and that could be rearing its face in poor SERPs and drops in PR for certain sites.

 

I think Google has been very effective in clearing out that den of thieves and that it has done this industry a favour. But you are now questioning their ability to sustain that initial success. Why? Do you not agree that this industry needs to change direction?

 

I guess 'review' can also be a verb.

You are describing your interpertation of it, mine is different. Matt Cutts has said to use no follow so gooogle knows your intentions clearly. But there are other sides to the story....some folks feel they should not have to go through those extra steps of changing their own code to suit gooogle and others would say if someone say pays for a blog post review why should it not count as a backlink? A backlink is a vote for the sites popularity and the owner of that site decided to pay somone for a review, if the review is honest then it is giving valuable information that should be searchable.

I am clear that in the end gooogle can do what they please because it is their business. But they can not and should not be able to blackmail us into doing their job for them or controling our business as webmasters.

Maybe they deem these links 'too easy to get' and not in the spirit of a full fledged valued backlink/vote for the site. Like I said above, if I pay for a review then there might be valueable information contained in that review and it should be indexed therefore my backlink counted but maybe gooogle only wants to value these links at a reduced value, so site-wide links will only be valued at 50% because so many of them are bought and not earned the way gooogle had predicted when developing their algorithm. Or maybe directory links are just too easy to obtain because you just pay a review fee, so they think they should be de-valued 20%? To me those type of reasons make a whole lot more sense than the trumped up exclamations of the doomsday preachers.

Again more speculation, if gooogle really thought this was a problem that needed an aggressive solutions they would announce penalties and/or de-index sites. There still have not put a dent in the MFA problem so somehow I doubt they have solved this one.

Also why come out and say we are using the data for testing and then secretly use it 'live'? Number one they would look like liars and number two (which is already happening) every competitor and their granny are reporting each other trying to get an edge in the SERPs. In the end there is no way they can start serperating fact from fiction unless they start giving lie detector tests to webmasters.....hey maybe that will happen too!

 

jg123 i'm not going to argue with you because ONLY google knows what is going on. As I speculate ... you speculate as well - perhaps even a little too much. It is quite evident in my eyes what is going on in terms or penalties and bans.

cheers, i'm out!

 

Great post... I guess my question would be "What is considered to be a bad directory?" Kind of new to the whole directory thing.

 

I haven't seen a single reference to one of those slippery slimy "List of Authority Sites" posts for awhile now. That message appears to have got through at long last. And although they still need to do a bit more work on PR, attitudes to that one have changed dramatically as well. Do you not think that with a bit a help from the industry and after all that's all that is needed, that we cant bring the MFA problem under control?

Wasn't it you that said that this industry is unique and that we need to use it to our advantage. What exactly do you mean by that?

What has happened has all been positive and Google deserves credit for the way they have managed the situation. They gave us ample warning and despite the fact it was ignored they have given sites like Alive and Aviva room to clean up their act. That I believe is a mistake. I would have trodden on them and wiped them out. Their response and their attitude in general, revolts me.

That's a tough one. Category dump, free script, empty cats, too few back links, committed directory master? No one really knows but every one is paying lip service to idea that we need to define quality so that we can get back to where we were and to continue selling links.

 

I agree it is very difficult to define quality. And it is so subjective. Some people really find some directories to be amazingly well run. Others find those same directories to be poorly done.

In my opinion, it all comes down to the end users. If you have a healthy following of non-webmaster visitors, then you have become an asset to the online society. If you are just getting visitors who are Web masters then you may have to examine the value of your site as a directory.

 

The truth is that for many years directories have made money selling links, plain and simple. Those directories will be around, they are not likely to get penalized (BOTW, GoGuides etc.).

Now it's too much. Any dipshit has by now caught on and slapping a phpld script onto a domain can be done by anyone.

It's not so much about some directories being "quality" and others not. It's about Google having to draw the line somewhere. A lot of the directories which are considered quality are really not quality either.

It's just that they've been around a lot longer and have a lot more content.

If you can point me to a web directory (other than a niche directory) that provides better search results than Google itself, please point me to it.



Mike

 

Mike:

I read your blog posting... I think it 100% right on.

 

Thanks, Wasabi, appreciate the compliment.

 

This is a good post. We should definitely help eliminate the bad ones, especially the non-quality paid ones..

 

Nice post.

The guys in same boat should give thrust in water together to make boat run.

 

That is one of the reasons I am not buying into the directory penatly consipracy.

If find it to be too much when these folks use dropped domains to scam people. But it is up to everyone, especially other directory owners to make it clear we won't support these type of directories by submitting to them, even if it is free.

 

How does all that that make "the directory industry" unique or different from any other industry, on or off the net? Or, for the webmaster, how is it different from any other link-building strategy?

 

The point I was making is that many purchases are done in 'single' amounts, so the competition can be fierce jockeying for the one payment the person will be making. I find this industry more unique in that most customers are making multiple purchases, so the money is more spread-out.

I guess all link building strategies are different but I did not say anything about that anyways.

 

The only things really unique about the "directory industry" (sic) are the inflated egos, the aggressive spamming and scamming, and the poor reality testing that characterize the behavior of many directory owners.

 

All true but what other business can you start up with a capital investment of $10 and fixed monthly running expenss of $5? It allows anyone and everyone to enter the industry and whilst this results in a huge churn there is also an upside.

 

Minstrel it is sad to see your posts resort to abitrary bashing and name calling.

As you probably know 'inflated egos' is a human condition and is no more prevalent in the directory industry then in the rest of society.