There are thousands of “web directories” online today some of which are even niche directories containing links to only sites in a particular niche. The question we are going to analyze in this post is rather or not it is worth the time, effort and sometimes expense to post links to your sites within these directories.
The truth is that there are many different opinions on this topic within the search engine marketing community. Most agree that Google, for example, does not weight these links very highly at best. Some even think these links are worthless as it pertains to search engine placement and too many of them can even hurt your site. What I personally have seen is the true answer is… it just depends.
First and foremost, as we should always keep in mind, let’s remember two very important points. The first is that Google likes natural linking behavior and will reward sites that appear to be gaining incoming links in a natural manner. For example, if you publish a new web site and within a few days you accumulate thousands of incoming links from automated submit-able directory sites it is very possible your site could be flagged for a manual audit.
The second very important point to remember here is that you are not battling Google’s algorithm or any of its rules. You are only competing with your competition. In other words studying your competition will answer all your questions about what you should be doing. Is their site listed in directories and if so, how are they listed?
Thinking natural linking here it stands to reason that your site, if all links were obtained completely naturally, would have many different types of links, with various anchor text (words you click on), from all kinds of sources linking to various pages of your web site. Some would be some kind of URL link with anchor text such as www.yourdomain.com, yourdomain.com or even just yourdomain.
Another point to analyze is the number of links your competition appears to have from sites not indexed at all… seemingly worthless links? There’s no doubt you need quality structured incoming links to your site to favor well in search results but again, thinking natural link building, would it be natural to ONLY have top quality inbound links. What I mean here is that if you were not actively building links coming into your web site and were strictly relying on links to your site showing up on other sites naturally you would have to be the most fortunate person alive if everyone of those links were from grade A link partners. Even if everyone were from sites actually indexed would be phenomenally remarkable.
These would be reasons to find a service or software you can afford to submit your site to free directories but not too fast… remember, natural link building is a key in a competitive market.
One more point… there are a few notable paid directories that should be considered by anyone serious about getting a web site indexed and ranked. These directories are managed by human beings and each submission is manually checked. Why is this important? Google knows these directories and weights links from these sites differently because of it. (e.g. Yahoo! Directory and Best of the Web) DMOZ.org is free and also managed by humans but volunteers so it can take a while to get your site listed here.
So, the bottom line, in my humble opinion, is to keep your link building natural-like, study the site(s) that are in the positions you would like your site to have and keep track of any changes they or you make noting the results. This may seem like a lot of work at first and the truth is it can be. But if it were easy everyone would be doing it right?
Comments
Post has no comments.