Questions on Paid Directory Links...

[zadro]

Hi Moz Community!

We have a client in the manufacturing industry that is listed in Thomasnet.com for a about 75 different terms. For those that might not know, this is a paid directory site that ranks extremely well and has a very high DA at just under 90. These 75 different terms have spanned about 9,000 "dofollow" links on Thomasnet.com around 4 months back, right about the same time as the Penguin 2.0 update.

The link profile for this client had around 2,000 links prior to the 9,000 additional links, and our team is unclear if we should be concerned about these paid directory links. The organic rankings have dropped a bit, but that might be because of a more general Penguin update and not be directly tied to this paid directory.

I'm looking for some general guidance and recommendations in this paid directory space and help with Thomasnet.com if available.

Should these links be requested as changed to "nofollow"?
Will Google see this domain as one major domain link?
What other recommendations/experience with "quality" paid directories can be expected?

Thanks much and look forward to your comments and discussion.

Dario

[DennisSeymour]

Hi Dario,

I can't speak for everyone because a lot will definitely tell you to jump ship and nofollow it or remove it. My take is just to leave it and continue with your diverse link building. I've seen that happen a lot, local or not and I've never seen a good site like that hurt another site.

[DougRoberts]

Lots of things to consider here as not all directories are created equal!

• How important is the directory in your niche?
• Do your customers use the directory and would they expect to find you listed there?
• Do your competition have listings too?
• If you weren't concerned about the seo impact, would you still want a link?
• Does the directory exist to provide more than just a link to people who are prepared to pay?
• Do you get any referral traffic from the directory?
• How is the directory performing in the search results itself?
• What does the directory's backlink profile look like?
• What's the barrier to entry, what quality control do they have on listings?

I've only had a quick glance at Thomasnet, but my initial, gut-reaction is that it's not something I would worry too much about. It looks like a reputable site to me with a real purpose. While your links are followed so are everyone else's. With so many categories, and so many outbound links on each page the individual value of these links is going to be low.

Looking at SEMRush, Thomasnet are ranking highly for a shed-load of keywords... if they're getting the traffic you're interested in, then you'd want to be in their directory wouldn't you?

As Dennis said, as long as you've got a diverse link profile then I don't think that being listed on this directory would be a problem.

The real value a good directory should provide is good qualified leads!

[RobertFisher]

Dario,

I can speak from experience regarding a similar event with a new client. We took them on April 1. The previous firm (I refuse to call them SEO's) then submitted them to a few paid directories thinking they could "win back the business." One of our SEO's saw a link spike on 4/17 (they had 5,200 on 4/16 and 7000 on 4/17). Over the next 6 weeks that grew to ... 28,000 links from a single directory. We went into crisis mode on 4/17. We sent emails, etc. to the offending directory (knowing they would not respond, etc.) we wanted proof for later. We watched to see the first time a link from there appeared in GWMT and the day the first couple showed, we immediately correctly did a domain disavow using the disavowal tool. Note, at the time of the penguin update in mid June, their site's ranking pages fell off page one immediately. 
Due to the quick action we had most back on page one within a month.

I would suggest you be very vigilant with this. I will not give you direction on whether or not you should remove it other than to show you what we did. There is no way a spike of the proportions we saw will ever be viewed as natural IMO, especially if it is all from the same domain.

Best and good luck,

Robert

[Raydon]

Here's another thing to consider:

One of my clients who is amazingly a control freak even when it comes to matters like SEO of which he knows next to zilch, has this old directory and multi-website-brands system setup that he swears gets him calls and customers consistently. Well, turned out on of the updates they did to the directory THEY own... they put up a banner ad on every single page of this directory to his own website without a no_follow. you can imagine the rest of story.

We insisted he contact his webmaster to do something about these and make then no follow, which did not happen as the webmaster had not been paid by the guy properly at the time for the retarded banner links...

We immediately disavowed that domain, took 1 ranking drop from pos 1 to 2 for literally a couple of weeks and were back to normal top position in no time. he got to keep his ads and not pay his webmaster (he is a total douche i know) and i got to save his butt from getting burned in long run.

so look at the long game, and your numbers, if that directory is the bread and butter, you may not want to remove these links or anything, but rather disavow the whole thing. you can bet 9000 links from a single domain, do follow, will only get you in trouble, so save the SEO and let them have the rest. catching up to 9000 links from 2000 existing profile to dilute back the link profile is a horrible idea imho as if you do it fast it will further signal spamminess and anyway how on earth will you be able to come up with so many different quality and valuable backlink opportunities before you lose out all your ranking edge over competitors. so just dont ignore it and dont try to play catch up with it (at least not fast) and play it safe for their SEO. they may like the calls now and the cash flow, but they can turn around and fire you in 6 months when they realize they are on page 13 or something

[zadro]

Hi All -

Doug and Dennis, you guys nailed the part that was throwing me off. Specifically, that a "good" site should not hurt the rankings of another "good" site, but the dis-proportionate amount of links just has my "gut" telling me to get this corrected ASAP.

Rob and Omid, I really appreciate you sharing your real-world client stories! This helps me confirm my suspicions to jump on this right away.

Love the moz community, thanks a ton everyone!

Dario