Which Directory Sites to Choose?

[seanmccauley]

Hi All

I am a newbie to SEO and have a quick Q.

Assuming that appropriate steps would be to;

a) Ensure all onsite matters are are correct, title tags, meta descriptions, redirects, canonical issues.

b) Submit to Directories

c) Build Links

I am approaching step b)

Which Directories are worth submitting to? For those which require payment, how can I decide which are value for money or should I just use SEOMOZ list of links and assume that theyre worth the $50 - $100 if my higher ranking competitors have links from these directories. Also, can this be looked opon as grey/black hat 'buying of links'?

Thank you

Sean

www.pretavoir.co.uk

[BlinkWeb]

If you can get into dmoz (impossible? maybe) and Yahoo sites they are worth while. Unless you are just have absolutely no links I think directories are pretty useless anymore.

If you are looking for quick easy links, maybe spend some time in some forums answering questions related to your business. you get a signature link (for what it's worth) and if you add value as a contributer, you can see some REAL referral traffic.

I would not pay for many directories.

Find some good communities and participate.

[seanmccauley]

Roger

Thanks for you reply. The main reason I ask is that when I use Seomoz Open Site Explorer they list some of the most important links of my competitors as some directories. Our site is as you suggest almost devoid of links. I have submitted to dmoz and I assume that is just a waiting game. How do you get listed with Yahoo sites you mention?

[BlinkWeb]

Hi Sean,

I guess I am being a little black and white there. I would try and get listed in any directories that your competitors are listed in that show authority in OSE. It may or may not do you any good but it wont hurt.

Here is Yahoo Directory, submit link.

https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/

I guess what I am saying is that I would limit my time submitting to directories and try to use that time doing something that ads value, like participating in a community. It will pay you back way more than just pure SEO value and directories just aren't a good use of time or money in any large quantity.

Also check these links out for more info (the fact that SEOmoz has not dedicated ANY resources to updating this list or really discussing directories at all since 2008 is a good indicator of what they think of directories.)

http://www.seomoz.org/directories

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-good-web-directory-and-why-google-penalized-dozens-of-bad-ones

[seanmccauley]

Roger

Thanks for reply. That makes sense.

I will take a look at these links.

Sean

[scanlin]

SEOmoz maintains a list of directories here: http://www.seomoz.org/directories

[seanmccauley]

Thanks Mike The seomoz contains 180 directories with some of them towards bottom of list described as weak? Why have they listed these weak links? Also, as I am in the UK a) Should it make much difference as to which directories I use? b) As I am hoping to optimise for google.co.uk in the main, is there a different approach I should take due to my location? Sean

[scanlin]

Directory submission is a background task and subject to time management constraints and other things you need to get done. I would do all of the relevant non-weak directories first. Then, when you have time, get around to the relevant weak directories. Every do-follow inbound link you get has some value. Especially if it's on a different C-class IP address, or from a trusted source (human moderated directory). I wouldn't obsess about directory submissions, but I would put it on the list of things to do for when you have a few minutes (do a few per day or else you'll get burned out on it if you do them all at once).

As for UK vs non-UK, it may help you to have some .uk directories but regular old .com directories should help, too.

[seanmccauley]

Mike

Thanks for taking the time to give your advice. I think you make good points.

One last thought is; Is it worth paying 50-100 $ pa?

Thanks

Sean

[scanlin]

I never pay directories for inclusion, nor do I pay people to do directory submission for me (unless you're just trying to get into 1000 low-value spam directories, it's not worth it). You need to do it yourself so you get the categorization of your site's listing correct (each directory is a little different) and optimize/maximize the characters that each one gives you to write a description of your site (and/or add tags/keywords). It's a high-touch operation for human-moderated directories that are actually valuable.

[BlinkWeb]

Not a chance its worth 50-100.

[seanmccauley]

Roger

Thanks for that advice.

I just downloaded quite a good whitepaper from http://www.fastdirectorysubmitter.com/ which seems makes sense to me. Any of you have used this site or similar?

Thanks

Sean

[BlinkWeb]

You should put that in a new question and I'll bet it would get more eyes on it.

I've seen it done a lot but not sure as to how effective it is. I would think its pretty easy for google to figure out. Especially if they are all new domains registered to you and hosted on one c block or even the same IP address.

I think to do it where it wouldnt raise obvious flags would be expensive and you are still just getting links from new sites with little/no authority so not sure its worth it.

My guess is Google would figure it out anyway.

[seanmccauley]

Cheers for reply Roger.

[BlinkWeb]

Yeah I just feel like if SEO people put half the effort they put into tricking Google, into doing SEO the right way and creating value that they could have one hell of an SEO product.

What you are essentially looking to do is create web spam.

It seems like a lot of effort for something that may work for a whille but will almost surely be figured out eventually and doesn't bring any value to your clients.

[KeriMorgret]

Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded the Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory updates and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices

[scanlin]

Keri, that link in your post is broken. I see it as:

http://../blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices