I agree with most of what you're saying, but regarding Dmoz: I think it's obsolete, rather abandoned. Not because low quality spammer sites are frustrated because they aren't getting listed, but because Dmoz has tons of old links pointing to sites that have been shut down years ago! Particular topics on Dmoz (I used to watch them) aren't verified for broken links, sites shut down - they don't add anything new to them, they kept listings since 2002-2003 or so... That's why I think Dmoz is a wreck at the side of the road... at least that's what I've seen in many of their categories. If the "accepted" sites in their categories are either with broken links, 404 error sites, redirecting to spam pages... then Dmoz is a fossil. Their design hasn't changed at all in many years... probably a decade...
I think if there are dead branches on the DMOZ tree, that Google would probably just ignore those branches. They don't ignore the entire tree, because quite frankly some of the DMOZ sections are brilliant. I've used them for research many times and they crap on Google for diversity and quality. Not all sections of DMOZ are like that, granted. I once used one of their sections to show that of 20 sites listed in a certain shopping niche that 17 of the sites were basically worthless (currently offline; domain expired; old tripod/lycos style websites; website now offers different content; etc). My way of thinking isn't to destroy or label something worthless because parts of it are. It's such a huge resource that there's going to be junk in the un-tended sections. Those places aren't verified probably because there is no one watching them. If its a volunteer-edited resource than you have to cop the good with the bad on it. If it was spam that was creeping in as a result, then yes, I'd be with you on the whole abandoned factor. If DMOZ switched to paid, people would be up in arms about them charging a review fee. What if the review fee was $1000, with no guarantee of listing, but a guarantee that each section would have a dedicated editor, and ensure no broken links? It could be done, but would the directory hold more value or less? I think people hold DMOZ to this massive standard based on how popular it is. Let them go commercial then, and see if it changes somewhat? Of course, you'll then have to pay a massive fee to get in, one that all your competition might be able to afford and you can't and then it'll create another reason for people to whinge, but that's the nature of things isn't it
It is always worth submitting under Google Panda, and Penguin update if the website is high-quality and its web pages as well as the reputation of the site was built in an ethical way of optimization and not violating the Google quality guidelines...
Diversity of link structure, Good quality content and social media presence! These are the 3 keys to be successful in SEO these days. That’s my opinion, and still ranking high with no adverse results from Panda or Penguin.
The only adverse affects I have seen from Penguin are the ignorant and knee jerk reactions by inexperience SEO's. Short of that, a link strategy that encompasses a wide range of diverse directories and se's is paramount to driving both traffic and rising SERP's.
I think it's best to attract as many editorial "do follow" links as possible... But this is the type of link that's hardest to get.
Choosing right category is very important because when you submit your site in wrong category then it seems that you are doing spamming.
Absolutely --- and everyone will claim this as the purest form of link to get. So people ask "how do I get these links", and they are greeted with either deafening silence, or blank stares. It seems funny that everyone advocating getting those sorts of links has no idea how to get them. Oh, then there's that beauty of them all... to get good links create good content. Huh? How? My business (for example) is about real estate. The website is complete, what great content am I creating beyond what's already created? Am I creating crap content and pretending it's good by writing a keyword stuffed blog entry saying how great the market is in my region right now and how good the deals are? Really? Creating good content almost never gets good links. Unless of course you have a network of people you are involved with, who you share that good content with, and who you ask nicely to "spruik" on your behalf. You know "scratch my back and when you ask me to spruik your content I'll scratch yours!" --- you'll see huge enclaves of SEOs doing this for each other, even when the content is poor/mediocre at best. Though having said that, there are some absolute gem articles that people write who deserve the accolades, there just aren't nearly as many as people make out. Then you'll hear places like SEOMoz (not singling them out, because really they are one of many) rattling on about getting good links and directories not being that flash (since the OP is about submissions). Then they go and do an article where they toss out 2500+ directories as a good number to get, then they say... hang on wait a tick, some of these aren't that great... but we don't know which ones, we have to wait till they get penalised/de-indexed to tell you. If they don't know what constitutes a good directory link, do they know what constitutes a good link at all? Seriously? Anyone that can't tell in about 5 seconds flat whether one particular directory link would be better to get than another has no idea about the directory industry or directory submission at all --- which is probably why nearly all SEOs get it wrong. Most big SEOs know the "truths", and they'll preach them to you, but when you ask them for answers they have none, and when you go and use their services, they do exactly the same as everyone else just in greater magnitude. If you were going to do 500 directory submissions, they'll do 5000. If you were going to tweet about something once on your personal account, they'll go buy 100 tweets for you. That's how most "SEOs" work, especially in terms of social where they purchase "likes" then make you pay and pretend like they got you real followers which are actually mass-produced fakes. None of this stuff improves your website's presence, but it "appears" too because you have all the things everyone says you need to have LOL. I just love this stuff
Great post, Dan. I just don't believe much in services that promise to get you 1000 directory links or submit to 5000 directories, and those services mask the real directory industry. There still are people who carefully edit their directories and don't accept junk. Those are the people you want to know about, but those people don't necessarily advertise as much because they don't need to. They have a well developed clientele.
i think its still usefull but rather than going for "list of 100 high pr" directories , you should rather go and Google search your specific web directory and then try submitting to it.
You're right on the money here! Here is what we've experienced, more than once, in the last few years: Every once in a while, we go and add one of our sites to the External Links section of a relevant Wikipedia page. Now, as most everybody knows, Wikipedia links are (famously) no-follow. The interesting part is, a few weeks after we've added the link, the Google traffic to our site rises noticeably. Invariably. Every time. Then, at times, some (kindly) soul comes along and removes our link. Every time that happens, Google traffic drops (the drops being much faster), like clock work. No-follow, eh? Go figure.
It never cease to amaze me how many people JUMP the moment Google says "jump". Many have been led astray or simply destroyed their SEO strategy in an instant with a knee jerk reaction where calm and patience would dictate - stay the course... If you're not doing anything bad to begin with, why panic?
SEO seems to have become clearly more complicated. I have not been using directories when backlinking. Thank you for sharing your experience on how much value you got from them. While I can't really help you, I would not be surprised if after some time directories recover some if not all of their ranking power. With that being said, they may also not recover. I am saying this because it appears to me that Google is vulnerable. Throughout all of those years they have not been able to eliminate people who use backlinks to rank sites. I have also heard about human reviewers. I see these elements as clues that this search engine is faced with a situation that is hard to resolve. While people said that article marketing had been hit, I have remarked on one of my blogs that one of the rankings that persisted even after the last update was for a page on which I used an article network.
So far as free directories are concerned, what usually happens is as follows: A submission under inappropriate category gets 1. approved (in which case, the directory is likely to be crappy, not worth much) 2. rejected (which would indicate a decent quality) 3. moved to the appropriate category (decent quality + kind owner/editor - kind of hard to find today )
Most free directories are completely automated. Though some list their listings as "pending" or in a pending state, which can be later reviewed moved to an appropriate category, approved and or rejected. In my experience most just auto-approve to build volume quickly. In that sense, yeah, you get a lot of irrelevant crap and a crummy directory. The paid ones generally take the time to review the listings, correct any problems, spelling, case, punctuation, etc... And also move to more appropriate categories, or in some cases create a sub-cat that makes more sense if necessary.... The thing is, what you find with people who pay for their listing..... They generally almost always submit a decent listing with good content and list it in an appropriate category. People spending money tend to take the time to list legitimate sites in the proper part of the directory. The whole pay directory model makes for a much better directory and also attracts much better clients/sites. Once everyone gets that in their head you'll find a much better understanding of what makes a pay directory more valuable and of a higher quality. The quality of site being listed is generally much better than the freebie spammed MFA sites that are listed with scripts by the tens of thousands. Make sense?
Absolutely, and what makes it a win win formula is that serious submitters look at the other links in the category they're submitting to. If they see listings comparable or better than their own site they'll see this as somewhere to enhance their site, if they see a bunch of spam they'll move on. And it works the other way too, if a spammy submitter sees a category full of spammy sites they'll feel comfortable to submit there.