A part of me keeps wondering if the quality directories are going to be unfairly lumped with the say 99% of garbage directories out there by Google. The "SEO pros" have been chattering for years about how awful directories are yet make a major portion of their income through submitting the sites of their clients. Penguin has left everyone wondering if it's safe to get links from anywhere and has created a new industry for the SEO folks - link profile cleanup. Panda, it would appear, put the first nail in the coffin of traditional article directories, which I tend to think was a good idea. After all, article directories, by their nature, promote duplicate content. Since I've been a directory owner, I've not really seen anything that I would call revolutionary come along. Sure, there's been some new features added here and there. But, at the end of the day, the structure and content of directory sites pretty much has remained the same since 2006. On the other hand, I'm a fan of Pinterest and see how that site has just exploded in popularity. Two of our local TV stations talked about it in relation to small, home-based businesses (mainly artists and crafters) could use it to promote their businesses. It seems like a blend of Digg, Facebook and Twitter without all of the nonsensical posts about going out to dinner, baby's first words and other things that mean nothing to 99.9999% of the rest of us. From where I'm sitting, that site's the only true revolutionary advance in a directory/list type of site in years. The irony is that it started in my niche of arts and crafts - one many directory owners don't really pay much attention to. It has now become a global phenomenon that one day could truly give Facebook a run for it's money. I know this type of conversation has went absolutely nowhere in the past but I really think we have to get off of our complacent butts and start looking to truly innovate here before the world passes us by. What say you?
I do intend to show you my answer to this question quite soon. Until then I do look forward to seeing what others may offer.
I don't think Google actually works like that. Lumping similar site types together? I don't see it OR you would see the same thing happening with quality blogs. Now, lumping similar content types together? Absolutely. Where I think people go wrong in their thinking is that these mass-produced directories who do no editing ALL look the same. I don't know how long I've been rambling on about not including spam, but people don't listen. If it is easy for me to go to a directories search box, type flower and hit enter, and then find that the directory is listing not 1, not 2, but literally dozens or even hundreds of dodgy, spammy, Indian flower sites --- How easy do you think that is going to be for Google? Then imagine it on a large scale, where 10s of 000s of directories have all that same spammy content listed? It is easy to identify. That is why those directories ARE NOT real directories and definitely not quality. The SEO Pros you speak of are employing a well-known technique called smoke-and-mirrors. They tell you it's a terrible idea to submit to directories, so you all stop doing it. That then makes their job a whole lot easier as they continue submitting in normal fashion. Post-penguin, they've even developed a clever new "link pruning" idea suggesting you go and have all your directory listings removed, cos you'll get penalised otherwise. Clever, clever, they even have their competitors removing their own listings. Come on people. THINK! Do you really believe those SEOs are saying it for YOUR benefit. Personally. I see the quality directories who have been around for years continuing in their same vein. Vetting content. I see the garbage directories, continuing in their same vein. Listing lots of spam Google is getting better at identifying spam, so more and more garbage directories will fall off the tree. Does that really bother anyone? It shouldn't. Those "traditional" article directories you refer to are also the ones who just spin articles. That is spamming. If the articles are unique and the content is vetted, my bet is the article directory itself will be highly considered. Don't run around thinking the sky is falling in based on some SEO pro's chicken little theories. They've had the same speak for a decade now, and the sky still looks the same in terms of an innovation movement? I believe the traditional directory owner (the type that exists on this forum and solicits submissions) has to learn to crawl before they can walk. And that involves learning how to edit. Until that happens, you are going to see the same old murky waters I'm afraid. Those that are already walking, will no doubt be off innovating and too busy to respond in this thread
OMG I've got to learn how to edit? What does that mean? Surely If I put videos on my site, get all the latest mods, sync with facebook and twitter and grab a high PR domain that should be enough
Web directories are not going go away anytime soon. The mass produced ones maybe, but not the good ones. If you think about it, people just want to find unique and useful content, so provide the need. What use it is to have 100,000 listings and most of them are spam or actually useless to the person searching. If you have a listing in your directory that does not provide any value to the person using it, then don't list it. Most directory's don't do this. Most paid high ranking ones will list anyone who pays the cash upfront I think the future has to go the directory creators who have a passion to find the best on the web and weed out the garbage. Creating a standard to get a listing. Isn't that what Google is hoping to accomplish with search and beyond?