What happened??

[BBuck]

Hi all! I just noticed over the last week that directories have taken over the first page of Google for vanity/local searches. My client has shown strong for over a year, and all of a sudden got pushed to the second page and all of these directories have been pushed forward. My client is a law firm, so the directories are findlaw.com, lawyers.com, justia.com, avvo.com, elocallawyers.com, yellowpages.com, primebuyersreport.com, yelp.com. There is only ONE law firm website listed on page 1. It used to be only a couple directories and mostly law firms.

I bet you smart people know what happened!

[TakeshiYoung]

What kinds of keywords are you searching for? A lot of these directories like FindLaw have very high domain authority, so are often able to outrank individual firms for non-localized keywords. Also, for broader searches, returning a site that lists multiple firms may provide a better experience for a searcher than just returning individual firms.

[sedamiran]

I had a similar case once and again it was with legal websites, i am not quite sure if it is the same thing but worth checking it.

Legal directories generally have a blog or news page and if they publish a popular subject with unique content , they intent to show up on the first page. For instance, if there is a new update about personal injury or employment law and all these directories publish a well-written unique content on the same day and that effects your ranking depending on the content and keyword you target. However, this is generally temporary issue, they don't stay long on the first page, generally Law firms have stronger position than directories on SERPS.

[RichardSEO]

Looks like Google enacted blended results. So a single site can no longer rank for both an organic keyword and the local 7 pack. At the same time, directory sites such as Yelp, yellowpages etc are dominating local keywords. You can frequently see the top 3-4-5-6 results being Yelp and the local 7 pack afterwards.

SEO your Yelp listing!

[BeanstalkIM]

I'm going to guess your client got impacted b the Penguin 2.1 update.  It may well not be a case of your client getting penalized however as opposed to the other sites getting rewarded.  I've been up against Findlaw, etc ... they have good links.

I have to guess that if we're honest - they have better links that your client and your clients links got devalued in the update.  So it's more a case of the client losing weight than directories being increased in value.