Web Directory News

The first question that comes to mind after reading the title is -

“Does Google still consider directory links as quality?”

I would like to say that - “YES” , it still does if the directory is old, its PR is not inflated by way of buying links, it has appropriate category for your niche, it has good amount of quality contents and over-all the category you are looking to list is recently indexed!

Ooops - so many things!

Second question that struck is - how do I find quality web directories that would give me links counted by Google?

IMO - this is the most difficult answer to give even for Matt Cutts! In a world obsessed by the green pixel on the Google toolbar, webmasters and SEO industry is just hooked to the Google trick that makes webmastering, seoing or simply browsing the net more interesting.

Far too long Google tolerated a monsterous link market where webmasters were buying and selling link based on Page Rank and thereby successfully manipulating SERPs without giving a damn on Google’s webmaster guideline on quality.  But those days are over. In the last quarter of 2007, Google came down heavily on those though the market is still vibrant beneath the surface i.e. underground. But the message has been delivered and heard loud and clear. Big Daddy has penalized all and sundry - directories, blogs, open source development sites (aka Linux) and took away all that important tool-bar green pixels.

One does not have to be Einstein to understand the relation between Page Rank, SERP and SEOing.  In those days, one just had to buy a domain, host it, install an easily available directory script, buy few sitewide links from high PR sites and got PR5/6 with internal pages too having high PR. Then promote it on webmaster forums and blogs and the $$$s poured into his/her Paypal account.

No longer! Along with stripping sites of their homepage PR, Google has found a way to hide the PR of inner-pages too even for the old, content rich and trusted directories like botw.org and Yahoo Directory. Thia has made the job of webmasters and SEO experts difficult and has provided a level playing field for those small directory owners who look to build quality websites/directories with contents.

So a quality directory these days does not mean having PR on inner-pages/category pages. But the quality depends on how frequent is the site crawled, indexed and how much content it offers to normal visitors except webmasters and SEO experts. As they say, “content is the king”.

A quality directory should not only consist of listing websites on various categories, but it should also provide real quality contents to visitors.

So look for those type of web directories and you get a quality link even from web directories.

In my view I have neglected this directory for long in terms of promotion or advertisement. As a result it has an embarrasingly low rate of submission and hence there are too few listing on this directory for a 9 months old site.

It seems I have finally woken up that this directory can be of good value to webmasters, SEO/SEM community by way of their submission to this directory. All these factors ( more listed sites in most categories) will go a long way in making this site really useful to visitors who come here looking for some information.

As a first step towards achieving the goal, I have started a huge discount on Silver Membership Package. Original price for the package was $10, but I have made it $5. I am promoting the offer on many webmaster related forums. This is my way of viral marketing . That is to make people aware of the existence of this site at a price.

This might also get many link-back to the site from people interested in directories .

The offer is valid till next Tuesday.

Of late, Google has been cracking down on paid links - i.e. penalizing sites selling or buying links. Matt Cutts, head of Google’s anti-web spam team says, due to buying and selling of links based on Page Rank , webmasters and SEO/SEM experts are manipulating search results by putting low quality sites on top of search results which goes against Google’s TOS -i.e. providing organic search results based on organic link-building.

While Google has no problem if some-one buys links for traffic, it  asks webmasters to put NO-FOLLOW tag while giving out links or use URL redirect so that the link does not help in manipulating the search result.

Web directories by nature gives out links to submitted sites if approved. Many established and high PR directories also  charge fees from webmasters who submit their sites on them - basically, as review fee. As these directories have high PR on even inner-pages/categories , some directory owners try to market their directories on the basis of of high PR. There goes the conflict of web directories with Google. It has already penalized over hundred of high PR and established directories.

So is Google against directories? I personally think - the answer is a big NO. Because -

1) Matt Cutts, time and again told that, Google is not against quality directories - but is against directories that sell links based on PR. One can also demand a reasonable fee for the time it takes to review a site.

2)  Google webmaster centra, in its guidelines to webmasters clearly advices webmasters to submit their sites to DMOZ and Yahoo Directory, and other industry specific directories.

3) The most important reason for which I believe Google is not against web directories is it has not only penalized web directories - but it has penalized big and established authoritative sites and blogs all over the net. It has downgraded the PR of old and high PR blogs like searchengineguide.com and seroundtable.com for selling links. It has also decreased the PR of real authoritative sites like linux.org, phpnuke.org and statcounter.com.

Here we go. Google is not against any specific niche of web sites but is against all those that sell links based on PR.

There will always be  a place for web directories in Google world because Google technology also nees links to find and index new sites or contents. Quality web directories that have high editorial integrity will always be relevant to Google bots and help a site for SEO purpose. As the internet grows beyond our imagination, quality web directories can help Google bots and they are complimentary rather than antagonistic with each other.