Google clearly states in their guidelines(and recent Panda and Penguin updates found a lot of violators) that the following are not allowed: General directories Paid directories Over use of anchor texts, especially putting it more than once Link farms Keyword stuffing Social booking marking sites that were created for spam(there are only about 30 legimate SB directories Articles on general article directories where you can stuff anchors etc What bothers me, So many "experienced SEO professionals" do not know that and keep offering those services.
If that is the case, I am wondering why Google not stops offering services for their very own general directory 'DMOZ'.
agreed with you webdev007. we are some time making mistakes while submitting our website or blog to the social book marking , directories and article marketing sites.we should never spam the social bookmarking sites. When you are trying to build your link power by making social bookmarking, do not try to sell the products in the social bookmarking message. you are making a grave mistake if you are posting marketing messages in the social bookmarking sites, and this will easily ruin your website’s reputation and your brand reputation online. you also know that article posting (submission)can generate back links to your site,but you have to look at this point ,can you get more visitors and better S.E result from that particular article? Dean
i would say any non editorial link are dangerous atm but problem is google recent penalization based algos are so messed up
forget about directory submission.high pr article and social bookmarking is useful for seo. my site getting traffic from these sb 's. stumble upon, scoop it, and pinterest .
enikram, it would have been nice if you quoted the exact parts of Google Webmaster Guidelines where the practices you mentioned are blacklisted. Because, in fact, most examples of link schemes that Google provided are also example of mass or low-quality, or obviously manipulative links. In reality, each method can either be used with care (and good results) or abused. For example, if you submit to dozens of article sites with junk content - you can get penalized. If you write a squidoo lens or a howstuffworks article with a link to your original piece of research (an example off the top of my head), you'll hardly get penalized.
There is no problem to submit your link at high quality pr social bookmarking or directory sites. it is important to remember that to keep different content at every site.