There are a good number of people that submit to web directories and have no idea which directories are actually worth paying for an express submission review.  So today I am going to briefly cover this topic.

First, let’s be blunt.  Most people that spend money to be listed in a web directory are doing so because their link will appear on a page with pagerank.  This is evident by the number of people that complained after their $200+ link on Alive Directory was no longer on a page with pagerank.  The Alive Directory had been penalized, and some of the people with links in that directory claimed they got nothing for spending over $200.  But yet their sites were still listed.  The bottom line is this.  Paid directories charge a fee for a listing review, and not for pagerank.  Pagerank does fluctuate, and can be taken away at any time by unethical link building practices.  So let’s look at how you can visually identify the better directories and get a better return on your submission expenses.

The obvious sign a directory is going to soon lose its pagerank is the domain name.  There are a good number of directory owners that pick up auctioned domains with pagerank, slap a directory on it, and charge a good buck for a listing.  The easiest way to see if a domain has changed its theme recently, is to plug the URL into the Wayback Machine and see what the site looked like in the past.  But after you have been submitting directories for a while, you’ll quickly spot most of these oddball domains being used for directories.

The presence of footer links is another tell-tale sign that a web directory is flirting with a penalty.  Most footer links are well outside the field of view of visitors.  Their placement makes it extremely unlikely that any traffic will be generated from the links.  In addition to this, having many unrelated niche sites so closely linked together is proof enough to Google that the directory is selling paid links.

Sidebar links can also lead a web directory to a penalty.  Again, if the sidebar link cluster contains links to a variety of unrelated niche Websites, there is a high likelihood that Google will identify them as paid links.

Lately reciprocal link directories are also coming under the spotlight.  If a directory requires a reciprocal link as part of the listing requirements, that directory may face persecution by Google.  Remember, Google discourages most link manipulation schemes.

The types of sites listed in directories can also lead to that directory being penalized.  Generally speaking, porn throws up a major red flag to the search engines.  Gambling and pharmacy related listings do not appear to hurt the rankings of directories at the time of writing.

While website directory owner’s have every right to run their directory the way they want, we also have the right to make educated decisions where to spend our money.  It is my hope that these few tips will help you avoid paying for an express or featured listing at a directory that is begging to be penalized.

Tags: Avoiding Penalized Web Directories, Identify Bad Directories

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 1:41 am and is filed under Link Building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.