Paying for DoFolow Directories

[PMC-312087]

This post is deleted!

[AlanBleiweiss]

Paying for links from companies that offer "dofollow" backlinks is not a way of obtaining quality inbound links. First, the fact that they charge for them is a big red flag to Google - such links are a violation of their terms of service. Second, If the links you get are coming from a site that is not relevant to your specific market, that alone means they're not high quality links, even if they were free. High quality links take time, effort and footwork. Since paid links are against Google's terms of service, you enter an area of risk in having your site suffer if you are caught up in it. While I advocate to clients that they should never pay for links, IF you are willing to take the risk, your only wise course of action is to find companies that have the skill, experience and knowledge to obtain links that have the lowest risk of being detected as paid links. And the amount you'll pay per link is going to be "through the roof" compared to companies that charge for "dofollow" links on their own sites, or if they offer dofollow links at any kind of "bulk link" rate.

[RyanKent]

I agree with Alan.

If you were to pay money to be added to a directory, I would suggest the Yahoo directory. They are the most respectable directory I can think of where you can pay money to be listed.

[SEM-Freak]

Listing in directories really depends on your industry. Take a look at the link profile of your competitors - if the majority of them are in a directory like Best of the Web, for example, I would go ahead and get that directory link. I believe a few directory links make a website's link profile look natural - most businesses out to promote themselves on the web are going to include themselves in as many relevant categories within business directories as possible. This will include a couple of paid directories - it is perfectly natural - in fact I think it would be UNnatural not to be in those directories just as long as you take your time and avoid bulk submissions and try to acquire a balanced and varied link profile.

[MBayes]

Matt Cutts once said that "A" link can not hurt your ranking. What he didn't say was your link profile, or a bunch of links can not hurt your ranking.

Here is a good older discussion on this from Q.A.

http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/37193/are-paid-links-from-prsites-and-directories-bad

There are valuable directories. You have to be pretty picky. There are a lot of posts and training on this in the site. Picking up a DMOZ listing and Yahoo directory are great (as noted).  I think one thing you want to watch is the c-blocks they are on.  One directory company may have 100's of sites on a c-clock, and this can harm your trust ranking.

Long story short,  make your link profile as natural as you can.  Paid directories can fit into that, as well as blogs, forums, press releases, no follow and follow links. But do try and go for quality at all times.