Will adding a mini directory to our blog with lots of outgoing no follow links harm our authority and context

[activenz]

We are an adventure travel tour company, who run hiking, kayaking, biking adventures in several countries. We have a travel tour operator website with a blog in a sub folder of the site. We want to add a section/category in the blog itself with a hiking club mini directory, that lists all hiking clubs in 1 or 2 specific countries.

The reason we want to do this is because the people searching online for these clubs are our target market and potential clients. We hope to rank for some of these searches, and encourage interest in our blog/website in the process. We also want the potential to build relationships with these clubs.

The question I want to ask is: if we add say 100 to 200 listings, and make all outgoing links no follow, will this harm our page authority, reputation with SE's or pose any other risk for our site. The other question is, do you think that this will dilute the context of our content - as its slightly different in context to the rest of our site content.

Are we better to set up a separate site for this purpose.

[mathamatix]

Great question. I'm actually interesting in doing something similar with my site. I'm just waiting for the experts to chime in.

[EGOL]

Just saying what I would do.. and I would not have any problem adding something like this to one of my sites.

I would write an article about hiking clubs and the benefits of finding and being involved with one.  People who want to go on your adventures might benefit from these clubs by learning about hiking, finding several local people of similar interest and ability to hike with, get in shape so that they will be ready for your adventure, learn about fun hikes in their local areas, hiking is an activity that is more fun with some friends.

So, on my site this article would be in the left column of the page and the list of hiking clubs arranged by geographic area would be in the right column.  Some photos and quotes from happy hiking club people would be used to balance out the column lengths.

This article and the list of hiking clubs is a great service to your potential clients.  The article gives greater value to the list of clubs.    You don't have to link to them.  You can simply publish their URL if you want.

[activenz]

Thank you for the great ideas you have suggested here, would be great to incorporate these.

[David-Kley]

This will not hurt your site if done correctly. We have done something similar on our website. Instead of locations like you are trying to do, our page is sorted by category.

http://www.webdesignandcompany.com/seo-resources

We have left most of them to "follow", as I don't think it hurts you as much as people may say.

What you don't want to do is just have a huge link directory page, that looks like it doesn't have a purpose.

[activenz]

Ok thanks alot. I know its important to maintain good rich, rather than thin content on posts (listings). I was intending on using categories and tag them with regions - so the content is more like an actual post rather than like a telephone book.

Cheers