Paid for Directory Listings and no-follows

[McTaggart]

Was just about to book an advert in a directory until the salesperson told me that the directory listing would be replicated over 40 times, from different websites (they white label the directory to different sites, who then sell their own adverts in the directory).

I asked them whether they did nofollows - they didn't know what they were, so clearly not.

I'm thinking 40 plus identical links coming through (over 10% of total links to site) could attract punishment from Google. Your thoughts would be welcome.

Thanking you in advance, Luke

[IM_Learner]

My personal view is that directory listings don't help if they are not from very reputable and topical ones. Even if they are, their affect is very low. However, most of the paid listings are no-follow because in case Google detects link buying to affect PageRank, it penalize the buyer as well as the seller.

[Matt-Williamson]

I would stay away Luke because they are:

1. Likely to be low value.

2. If they have links between their directories this is basically a link network and you don't want any part of it.

3. With link profiles being under more scrutiny than ever and spam link tactics are being monitored more thoroughly you are likely to suffer a punishment from Google because this would strike as a clear attempt at manipulation of search rankings.

The penguin will be visiting.

These are my thoughts and I wouldn't risk it if I were you - plus I definitely wouldn't pay for the privilege!!

[McTaggart]

Thanks for the useful feedback Matt - It sure is a tough one - they are ranked in top 3 for a specific business category, they are relevant to client, and they channel large numbers of bookings to target geographical region.

That said, booking with them could undo my SEO work, so not worth the risk. My impression is they're not being purposefully manipulative - it's just they don't get the SEO implications of what they're doing.

[Matt-Williamson]

I have been in a similar situation myself and it is a judgement call - I always tend to air on the side of caution. How I look at it with a lot of the paid directories is the fact that they aren't purposefully manipulating search doesn't mean they aren't going to be hit at some point and when they are you don't really want to be associated with it in my opinion. A lot of business directories purely exist on customers paying for entry and advertising and are not therefore overly concerned with their SEO.

You could, as I have done, ask to talk to their development team/technical - you could also analyse whether they are using no follows on links and ask for examples of their white label sites. Depends how much time you want to put into it and whether you think it could be truly worth using them if you weren't endangering your SEO work..