I have recently seen a huge advertisement campaign by BOTW directory offering discounts on directory submissions. When i visited the directory, they have up to 50 do-follow links on each category and the description with them is just a line or so with no unique text. My question is why Google does not mind it for BOTW while other directories would be considered SPAM if they do the same. (Recently Matt Cut has said that they are ok with directories like BOTW)
Ideally, the difference is that BOTW reviews each submission and only accepts sites they feel meet their quality standards. The problem, in Google's eyes, is that many paid directories aren't actually reviewing sites and declining listings but accepting anyone who pays.
Other directories are considered spam only if they 'are' spam. BOTW as well as many other established directories have been around the block for a long time and have kept a high quality of links and descriptions. They're actually a good source to find website not just used for SEO purposes.
In my opinion, I also want to give a second opinion with a different side. it is one of the phenomena of politics to dominate the internet. As an example: You have a child who fight with maid in your house. then you will definitely defend your son. it's something that is natural and very reasonable because you love your son. The conclusion: If you want to be any authority or owner and you can do anything as long as it does not violate the law.
The tough part is that new directories have to somehow get on the good side of Google and not get dinged as a spam site, even if they provide similar quality as BOTW. They have an uphill battle these days.
I think doing it manually (not using a bot / tool) is hard and spend a lot of time. But the result is very satisfactory origin completely SEO optimized to the maximum. but it also takes a lot of tricks, example: using a unique language that makes people interested and curious.
This is just a guess, but given the fact that BOTW actually takes the time and effort to both review and appropriately categorize their listings vs. the fly by night directory networks that tend to auto approve anything and everything - Google sees a difference.
Well where is the quality content on BOTW? they have less than a line description with each listing. Please visit them and let me know if i am wrong.
You can't say that Google allow some directory a free hand while some directories are on opposite side. Google recent update show that they will hit all those activities which produce spammy link and after that update a lot of free directories are hit and Google bring them down. As in case of BOTW, it is the paid version and they have a proper way to share your links with search engine and as a result the search engine support them. The web directory site have great responsibilities in that case like keep a constant check on all the link, and also check the relevance with that specific category bla bla.. and the search engine just watch all the link that comes from that specific sources. If BOTW send the right person from the right category, then no one will bring it down.
What more do you need? Look at Google. Its probably the most simple looking search engine/web site on the internet. Lots of white space, one line descriptions, title... that's it! What more do you really need? Pretty thumbnails, PR bars, reviews, ranking? Who cares. Its not a popularity contest, its a directory. A directory is a well organized collection of well categorized web sites consisting of a title, description and keywords which help make those listings more search friendly within the directory. No need to be flashy and overly congested with crap.
The quality isn't in the length of the description, it's the grammatically correct, properly spelled description, which briefly explains what the site's about that imho makes for a good description. Nobody wants to read a paragraph about a directory listing, invariably long descriptions will start keyword stuffing and 'promoting' the site which isn't helpful for the end user.
Exactly. Its not like the listings are haphazardly strewn together in broken Engrish with misspellings, grammatical errors and lack of proper capitalization. There are many directories out there that ARE like that. And they are for the most part completely unmanaged.
It is all quality and authority, these are the two things that keep BOTW on the top. Yet there are some other places also who are good enough but the best remains the best.
I think we just need to view web directories as websites. Whether they may or may not have once received some special dispensation because they were directories, that is no longer the case. A web directory, like any other website, that provides useful, unique information, will fare well in the search engines, while those that do not, will not, at least not without potentially hazardous search engine manipulation. One mistake that is made is that people are still focusing in PageRank as a means of determining how well a directory is doing, and the facts are that Google is very slow to update its PageRank these days, or to assign PageRank to a new directory, or any other website, for that matter. If you ignore PageRank, and look instead at how well a directory is doing in the SERPs, you'll find that well-maintained web directories can attain decent search engine positioning as quickly as any other website can. We don't see that a lot because so few web directories are well maintained, even those whose owners think they are doing a good job.
The short version of that is that if you put up a website that contained nothing but a bunch of outgoing links connected to keywords, would you expect that site to do well in the SERPs?
I submit new and orginal article to some directory , avoid google's robot are angry to my site and banned it.
Joeant.com is also a site worthy of mention is terms of quailty content and good standing in Google but their review process is one of the strictest there is.
Totally agree with silent soul. If content is everything, then where is the content? You here rich unique content. It takes more than one sentence to deliver that.