Link-Building - Directories

[PedroM]

Hello,

The SEO world is a bit confuse in the last months with the Google Antartic updates. Its normal since Google is trying to kill SEO to have more Adwords publicity results.

My most recent doubt is about directories. I heard Matt Cutts from Google in a recent Google Hangout saying that registering a website in directorys was ok, but not the ideal method to become relevant in the internet world. However it seems that this procedure is not against the Google policies.

Now, here in the forums, I already saw someone writing about adding your site to directories and how dangerous that situacion is.

So, whats your opinion about adding your site to free and pay directories as first link-building strategy? If directories are out of the question, why SEOmoz as a huge list of paid directorys? Is SEOmoz outdate?

[leadsprofi]

Hi Pedro,

Very nice question. I was thinking to place this question too, but you have allready placed it. I am using the directory-list from seomoz, and i invested more than 2500$ in a 3 Months, i see results, i see positive results, my competitors are not so strong, but it would be nice if someone answer our answer here.

But from my opinion, i think the directories are not so Powerfull, it helps, maybe really less, but if you think to make a good link metric for your domains, than i think every type of backlinks what we use, directory, press release, news article on newspapers, rss feeds, blogsubmission, css gallery, i think it helps, because we do on a natural way. I think is good and it helps, on my situation it helps, but on yours maybe not, it depends on your competitors, if they are strong, and hiring strong quality backlinks from new york times, cnn etc.. than you must hire the same quality of links, with a directories can't take a higher position.

Thanks

[Zoolander]

I'm new to this so I might be off the mark but when I look for directories for SEO I will also consider the directory itself as a source of traffic, unless I'm mistaken and most of them are just "SERP machines", which I suppose isn't so bad becuase the good ones with standards are like Search Engines outsourcing for humans examining and verifying sites at 0 cost?

[goodlegaladvice]

There are very few directories that are worth much anymore because they have so many external links the links are devalued I think you still might get some benefit from the few super popular directories like yahoo & dmoz.

Stick to paid.. or human verified

[DavidKonigsberg]

Stick to vendor listings and niche directories and stay away from seo directories

[matbennett]

The important point is that not all directories are equal.  "Directory" really described the structure of a website. However for many is SEO it refers to the thousands of directories that exist only to "help" sites rank in google.

So, if you were promoting a car tyre shop and found "Bobs Auto Resource site" where Bob picked great firms, wrote up what he liked about them and was itself linked from other quality looking sites then that would likely be a good resource.

However "Bobs cheap SEO friendly directory" that listed virtually any site that submitted itself, added no value to those listings, was full of rubbish and linked from equal rubbish would not be as good.

Damn that Bob and his wildly varied site quality.

[PedroM]

Love your awser MetmiX and in my experience thats the way I feel about this question. I was just feeling the community....;)