Matt Cutts has caused quite a stir in the SEO world with his post on reporting sites that sell links. Now I have a clear opinion that this is not some darstadly plan of googles to dominate the world, but a genuine attempt to improve there SERP´s quality with a new algo tweak that tries to identify sites that sell links.

But does this mean that directories are out of business? I mean, who actually buys a yahoo directory listing for the traffic? Come on Matt thats a link that is purchased to manipulate SERP´s. And its in the google webmaster guidelines!

I see the idea as clearly correct, but a little more clarity in the simple question about the yahoo directory would surely help lots of webmasters understand what types of links can be purchased without the link condom no follow tag or not.

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At the tail end of last month we received a much needed update for the seo friendly directory list from the info vilesilencer website. As of mid last month, of the 474 directories that were in the directory list since the last update in December, there were about 80 at any given time that had either moved to paid directories, requiring reciprocal links or simply shutting their doors.

The new update has a total of just over 500 directories, and Dan insists that there will not be any more directories added to the list until some fall off due to moving away from the lists stringent requirements.

You can find the directory list on the info vilesilencer website.

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I want to ask a question here, and I want directory owners to give a real, hard think about this: Is your directory really seo friendly?

I’m now passing the 10,000 submissions mark for directory submissions I’ve done. Let me tell you; I have seen a lot of these “seo friendly” directories: and many of them really aren’t what they state they are. If you advertise yourself as seo friendly, then by George you should maintain that with the way your directory works and functions. If there’s little or no benefit of being listed in your directory: why would anyone want to be?

Some common things that make a directory not seo friendly:

• Broken Pagination: If a user cannot correctly navigate throughout your website without running into 404 errors or 500 errors, then search engines can’t either.
• Poor Category Structure: If you have 700 websites listed under the “internet” category; yet the topics range from free banner advertising to dialup internet service - where is the relevancy? In my opinion, these “seo friendly directories” are simply glorified FFA pages.
• Nofollow Attribute: If you even want to consider your directory seo friendly, then this should be a curse word in your vocabulary. However, I am seeing more an more directories using this as a ploy to get people to pay exorbitant fees for their weakly ranked directories.
• Super restrictive submission guidelines: Understandably there must be rules and guidelines for submissions or every directory would look like they were running an ad farm. However, in my opinion, directories should give submitters some leeway during submission so that they can build their link popularity using relevant anchor text and descriptions. Every directory cannot be like dmoz, and shouldn’t be.

These are a few of the problems I’ve encountered with so called seo friendly directories; likely there are others that have other findings as well. Feel free to post your thoughts on this.

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If someone’s told you that directory submissions are easy; well, frankly, they don’t know what they’re talking about.  Even if all there was to directory submissions is finding a directory, locating the correct category and inputting a barrage of website information, trying to read the sporadic, distraught text on the verification images: you have to deal with having your IP address being constantly banned by the directory owners.

Likely if you have one or two websites you are submitting you will not run into this issue.  It seems to me, based on my experiences anyway, that when you get into submitting 5 or 10 or even 20 websites: some directory owners have a fit.  In all honesty, I don’t see what the issue is, I own a directory and I don’t ban IP addresses even if I get 20 submissions a day from the same person: as long as the sites conform to my guidelines.

Now, in all fairness, directory owners can do whatever they want with their directories.  SEO’s don’t have privilege to instruct these owners on how to run or maintain their directories.  However, to be frank, a lot of these directories would not be what they are today without the help of people like me, the people submitting a great deal of varied websites to these directories.

What can be done?  Just an occupational hazard I suppose.

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If you’ve done a few directory submissions yourself: you’ve likely noticed that almost all directories use the same few directory scripts. Is there a problem with that? Not really. It’s just, it would seem, anyway - that with the ever growing awareness of the importance of directory submissions that there would be a lot more in the way of choices for a free directory script.

I would love to write one myself, and very well could. . . but the server side coding language flavor of choice is php, and I code in perl/cgi. Of course, almost any paid web host supports cgi scripts, but php has a larger support base and is usually easier for a novice webmaster to install.

Getting back to the point; anyone else feel this way?

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If you’ve ever heard the phrase “don’t put all your eggs in one basket”, you probably already know it’s a wise saying.  For our international readers who’ve never heard it, basically it means not to put all of your efforts, hopes or plans of success into one thing only.  This can be applied to almost all aspects of life in general, and it surely applies to seo link building for your website.

Directories are great - general web directories are a highly beneficial resource for seo link building campaigns.  However, it’s not wise to only rely on one thing; you should diversify your link building strategy.  There are a number of ways to obtain backlinks aside from web directory submissions - one of them is blog postings.

Blog postings, while they would be much more costly for a large link building campaign than web directory submissions, are a viable addition to any seo link building strategy.  The biggest benefit, in my opinion, of link building via blogs is the increased frequency with with your website link is exposed to search engine robots.  This has all of the same benefits of other link building programs with increased exposure for your link amongst constantly updated content.

Of course, there are multiple ways to diversify your link building: press releases, forum postings, article submissions, etc; the main point here, as I stated before: don’t put all of yor eggs into one basket.

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Undoubtedly, the info vilesilencer seo directory list holds a great reputation for having quality, responsive directories.  For a moment, though - let’s think about what “the” ideal directory list would be for submissions.

With the obvious out of the way - they would have to be general directories, free, not requiring a reciprocal link & not requiring registration, though that’s not a terrible issue.  Also - they must be search engine friendly, of course.  But what else?

A directory having a high pagerank is good, yes.  I think that the age of the domain could/should come into play as well.  But what about other factors?

I’ve read & seen, though not that often - directory submission lists touting different class c ip addresses.  Some time ago there was a post on the vn7.com blog about a couple of different websites - while one had significantly more backlinks, the website with more unique backlinks (though far less in total) outranked the first in the same keywords.  This, I believe, was also coupled with poor on page optimization for the site with more ip address unique backlinks.  Does this factor still make that much of a difference?  If it did - we should really see more directory submissions that offered unique class c ip address directories as an option. 

I’m sure there are other factors that should come into play as well.  As posted before in this blog, page strength might be a good tool for comprising a quality directory list for submission.

I’m by no means trying to reinvent the wheel as there are great, well maintained directory lists out there: It’s just - if there were a directory list - that almost guaranteed an immediate and significant jump in your website rankings, alongside steady increasing popularity for every website you submitted to this magical list -  why shouldn’t we try to improve on what’s already available?

I would really love input on this - as I, myself, am working on a couple of things for this “magical” directory list as I have time.  I’m not too far into it, but would love to hear what others think would give a directory list a real, and significant value - aside from what is readily available today.

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It seems that even for as young as the internet is - we always find a way, eventually, to automate everything.  I’m not saying that automation is bad, because in many cases: it increases productivity, saves time, and even can save money.

The problem with “auto submission” software regarding directories is this: A script or program, at least at this point in time; cannot compete with good, old fashioned common sense. Beneficial directory submissions require about 5% physical work and 95% common sense application.

Where does the common sense come in?  Well - it’s in the category placement.  No matter how smart your submission script or program is, it can never compete with a human directory submitter that has a good grasp of the language (the language of the website being submitted and the language of the directory) and also has at least a decent dose of common sense.

The auto submission software cannot guage if one category is going to be more suitable over the other, and the auto submission software cannot tell if it is submitting to the completely wrong category.  Most directory owners are not in favor of this directory submission software simply because of the mis-categorization of websites, not to mention the very frequent placement of wrong data into the submission fields.  For instance, a semi-common occurrence with auto directory submission software is that the website owners name is submitted in the title field for the website.  This, of course, would not happen with hand submission with a competent submitter.

If you want to get the most out of directory submissions, simply say “no” to directory auto submission software.  You will more than get your moneys worth with a good directory list and a competent human submitter.

That’s just my 2 cents, anyway.

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With all the speaking of SEO Friendly directories, I think it’s important that people know what a SEO friendly directory is.

I’m going to go into what some of the common, standard beliefs are as well as a little bit of my own thoughts regarding these “SEO Friendly” directories.

A SEO friendly directory should:

• Provide a static, one way link back to the original website (no redirects, funky javascript, or cloaking going on)
• Use the anchor text that was input by the submitter of the website to the directory

In addition to this, a seo friendly directory should not employ the use of the rel=nofollow attribute to the submitted websites nor use meta tags or the robots.txt file to otherwise hinder the crawling of links by search engine robots for submitted websites to these directories.

My own personal flair: when I am submitting a personal website to a directory I tend to look at the overall quality of the directory.  At least quality in my opinion.

• Do they accept submissions from junk websites?
• Do they keep related websites grouped together, or do they dump a bunch of non-related links together?

Something that makes me consider a directory as not search engine friendly are the two questions above.  If I visit a directory and I see a link for a made for adsense pharmacy website in the same category as a webmaster forum: I immediately know that this is not the type of directory where I want my website endorsed.  This is a personal decision, and may not reflect the people that think along the lines of “it’s about quantity of backlinks, not quality”.  To me, these “directories” are not much different than a FFA pages, and hold very little value for the search engine optimization process. 

Undoubtedly others will feel different about this, and I’d love to hear some opinions about it.

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There’s no doubt that submitting your website to search engine friendly, high ranking directories is beneficial, but why?  There are posts seen daily throughout various webmaster forums with users that flat out ask:

“Why should I submit my website to directories?”

While others may have their own ideas as to exactly what these submission do and how important they are, here are a couple of benefits explicitly derived from getting a static, one way link to your website from a high ranking web directory.

1. Search engine robots love high ranking directories.  These robots visit high ranking directories frequently and actively follow the links placed within them. Namely; your website.  The benefit here: your website will get crawled, or visited, by search engine robots quickly.  This is probably one of the biggest benefits to directory submissions, in my opinion anyway.  You’re getting fast exposure for your website to the major search engines; something that will not happen with manual submission of your website directly to search engines themselves.

2. You’re building Page Rank with these directory submissions.  While the true value of Page Rank lies in the eyes of the beholder, in the right hands a high Page Rank website wields a great deal of power, and it is considered by many to be a sign of authority.  Having a high Page Rank website also helps you to charge a nice amount of cash if you’re willing to sell link space. . . and that doesn’t hurt, either.

This list of benefits is by no means exhaustive, but does give a simple introduction for those that question exactly what the benefits of directory submissions are. 

For those of you that know of more benefits, feel free to share them here.

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