Directory Submissions = Negative?

[JABacchetta]

I see that a lot of SEO companies offer a large 5,000 directory submission package with slow, 160 day submissions.

I don't mind spending the money to have this done, but my question is... would they help, or would they actually hurt my rankings? Since a lot of these directories are basically just copies of each other on different domains.

As an added question, would it be worth submitting to all of the general directories on this list? http://www.seomoz.org/directories

[chris.kent]

5,000 directories will more than likely hurt your rankings immediately. If they don't immediately, they will eventually. The best way to think about directories is to ask this question " If this listing passed on no rank juice, would I still want it?" In other words will it pass good traffic? or increase your reputation? If it won't do any of those things, it's probably not worth getting.

[Francisco_Meza]

Hi JA,

you can TOTALLY damage your site. Rand talks about this in one of his WBF. It sounds like you are very new to internet marketing. you may want to read this: http://www.seomoz.org/beginners-guide-to-seo

Anytime you are trying to game the Google algorithm, you risk damaging your site's ranking abilities. OBVIOUSLY 5000 directory submissions is something to game the algorithm. I wouldn't do it.

[Esaky]

But In every new Micro-niche sites like tumblr or pinterest - i have added the Blog url ! like this many sites i added, will it affect ?