All my sites have about 40 directories linking to them, some more, some less. So far they have appeared to only help, but I'm afraid if I get too many of these crappy directories linking to my sites their SERP rankings will drop. Any guess on how many is too many?
As far as I am aware, you can get away with quite a lot of "crappy" directory links as you put it, IF you have an old and established domain with a few really well trusted backlinks. If your site is quite new I wouldn't go overboard on the PR0 "spammy" directories personally.
You need to diversify your link profile. If all you are getting is "crappy" directory links, then that isn't saying a lot about your websites. Shellerz is right, the more good links you have, generally the more average ones you can have. Try and get some different sorts of links before returning to directories again.
I don't think it will matter as much if your site is quality and popular. People concentrate too much on SEO, backlinks and promotion when instead they should focus more on professionalism and quality web service. People will come to your website if it contributes to the internet in a positive and efficient way. The search engines will put it first if it's the best in it's niche. That's all that really matters.
When they pour boiling water on you for submitting useless sites or using bad keywords and titles....
Just using multiple titles, description and keywords..Then don't submit your site to 1000 directories within a short frame time.
Congrats for the dumbest thread I've seen in a while! No site on earth, no matter how "crappy" it is, won't hurt your own sites. Imagine if that would be the case all your competitors will link your own websites to a bunch of "crappy" sites and you'll be nowhere in searches. Search engines are not that stupid as some humans might be... Every single link holds a bit of value, the stronger and relevant a link is, the better for your website. If you link to a bunch of crappy sites most probably your links will hold very little value or will be discounted which means that your linking campaign was as crap as the sites you linked to... Hope this helps
This is good advice too - if you must use lots of lower quality directories make sure its at a steady rate of acquisition or it can look a bit spammy.
I wanted to say that every backlink counts, more or less, but definitely no backlink can have negative impact on you. And will not have negative effect nor in the future.. cause if they do.. it will be easy to put your competitor links into "crappy" sites, and brig him down. "loredan" said it the best.