What is the optimum number of listing per page in a directory for SEO purposes? Is it better to have extended listings for the "best listing of category" at the top of each category? If so how many would be best?
Its better to focus on quality than quantity. Better having 4 links to quality portals than having 20 links to crap nonsense! Few spoons of quality articles in related categories also works wonders.
Is there a correct answer? DMOZ may have 150 listings on any given page but why is that bad. The worst it means is that users scroll down. Another directory may limit their listing to 10 per page but that may mean that people need to keep clicking next page, next page, next page.... As long as all listings are relevant to the category, my Personal preference is for all listings to be on one page even if it is 150 listings. That way I can scroll up and down easily. But that's just me and most probably Google doesn't care one way or another. Although come to think of it, if a category is full of irrelevant links Google will probably care and I will Personally hit the "Go somewhere else" button.
I totally agree with this sentence, but in most cases the big G does not give PR to those pages even they are relevant to a category .
I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about. There are good reasons why pages limited to 10 links per page in both Directories and Search engines. You probably think that Yahoo, Google, Bing and others some kind of idiots because they are having limit of 10 links per page and you know better than researchers who studied this subject and came to conclusion that average visitor attention to details is decreasing proportionally when amount of links per page increasing. Your 150 links per page would mean that visitor will pay attention to maximum of 20 links leaving another 120 links ignored because his/her brains would fall to sleep before finishing scrolling to the bottom of that page. There is something else your own brains couldn't grasp. Amount of KBs, time it takes to load page with 150 links, bandwidth that page will waste, etc. stuff that would be to technical for you to understand. As to dinosaur DMOZ, they scripted that directory in 90s but still using it today the way it was then. So get better example and then we'll talk. fastreplies
Someone correct me if my number is wrong but I seem to remember Google, perhaps Matt Cutts saying something about a single page should have no more than 15 or 20? outgoing links. Ideally, once a category starts getting a bit full, you should make a second or sub-category and split up the listings.
Dear Sir I stated my personal preference for listings, It is my preference and if you have a different opinion that is fine by me. I simply do not care. I took the time to visit Amray and did a quick search for "flower". 61 listings - 10 per page in countries as diverse as Romania, Thailand, Vancouver,India and Australia. I find it extremely difficult to find how that information displayed in such a manner could be of any use to any person whatsoever. So I did a search for flower Romania and got even more listings for such things as rental cars Romania and such gems as Touchstone Gems (no flowers, No Romania) My brains fell asleep and I picked up my kanolies and went somewhere else. Regards
Cannot help but agree about splitting up categories, but as to limitation on URLs well ... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York Page has 44 outgoing and internal links in the first 5 paragraphs. Probably hundreds more on the same page. PR7
Well, diverse is good thing, isn't? But did you found any spam in Titles and Descriptions? Or dead links? And BTW, I tried Google to search for your keywords 'flower' and 'flower Romania' and got 3 times more results for 'flower Romania' search than 'flower' alone. So, what is your point? Or you don't have one and just on your trolling trip making another post count fastreplies
The point is simple. My Preference is for as many listings to be displayed on the one page as possible. This is my personal preference as I do not like to flick trough 10 entries at a time. It has zero, zip and zilch to do with Google, Matt Cutts or any SEO theory. That was the first word to pop into my head as I was heading out to dinner. I used the directory in your signature to see how pages were listed, the test was random and the result was the result. The result proved to me that my personal preference is to have a great deal more listings on a results page than 10. To me listing 10 results at a time only satisfies sponsors. It is to be construed in no way as a critique of the directory as a whole.
Bob, I hear what you are saying and it might make a useful option for site visitors (along the lines of visitors being able to sort by PR, listing age or alphabetical) but I doubt you will get many takers among the directory owners who are trying to create something worthwhile for BOTH submitters and site visitors. Having hundreds of outgoing links on a single page won't hurt the site they appear on but it will decrease the SEO benefits of every link on that page. Comparing a site like Wikipedia with directories is like comparing a set of encyclopedias with a phone book.
Agreed, I was pointing out that obviously Google doesn't penalize/devalue a page for having a lot of valuable, in content and relevant links on a page. There is a theory, much quoted, that Google devalues the links themselves if there are too many on a page, but I have yet to see/hear/read irrefutable proof that that happens. And I don't believe that it is possible to prove it, after all only Google knows what value it assigns to any given link. Some points from Google guidelines - taken out of context of course: 1. Keep the links on a given page to a reasonable number. 2. Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. 3. avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links. My personal interpretation of these guidelines means that if a category in a directory has 50 listings all of which are relevant to that category and all of which are useful to a visitor and if they couldn't become more relevant by breaking them down into more sub categories then the page meets the guidelines and the page is useful for visitors. In other words the page still remains a "good neighbourhood". Let's face it, if you could buy a link on Wikipedia on a page with a thousand links then most people would leap at the opportunity. If, on the other hand a category has 7 listings, none of which are relevant then that is a place to avoid as, according to Google's guidelines, it is a bad neighbourhood. My personal preference as a visitor is to see all relevant listings on the one page, no matter how many there are because then I do not have to keep clicking next page. Part of my criteria for submitting to directories is that a category MUST have relevant links, the number is immaterial for as long as the neighbourhood remains "good" in my eyes, I believe it will remain "good" in Google's eyes. But, it's all about personal preference and there isn't a correct answer.
Couldn't agree more. You'll find varied opinions regarding how listings should be presented; personally, I prefer to sub-categorize if at all possible when a category becomes sizable (30+ listings). I don't feel that having 100 listings in a category is good for the directory or the user. I think by subcategorizing if possible it can lead to a better user experience by not having to sort through multiple pages or a long list of listings.
Its up to you that what kind of quality standards you gonna maintain for your site listings! don said right 10~20 is far enough to do with