Dear all,

 

I would like some input about web directories. Even there are some few good web directories out there (dmoz and yahoo), I don't think the price and effort spent on this can be relevant for SEO. I mean, I prefer to work more on page optimisation and to create quality content then worry about directories. Another reasons:

 

a) as I said, there are just few good directories, and if you try to submit your website to those overnight directories.. Google will just discard.

who will use web directories today? Of course if you are in a really small niche, maybe is a good idea, but for the general public I don't think so.

 

Here were just some thoughts from me, I would like to see other ideas about it.

 

Best,

Daniel

If a client comes to you, and wants you to increase their visitors, SEO isnt the only way. Adding the client to the right directory, will often bring in more traffic, and get word around quicker. However it is making sure you get the right directories, this is where the people who just say "ill get you to top of google" and have no experience whatsoever differ from the guys who know what can realistically be expected and have done it before.

 

Reaper

DMOZ takes about 15 seconds to submit to and is wel worth it. A lot of sites mirror small sections of DMOZ and therefore give you a lot of links! Recently the top 10 sites in a niche I was targeting all had links from sites mirroring DMOZ on their links page. I agree time can be better spent elsewhere, however there are companies which will submit to the top100 directories for only £20 or something and its worth it. As for Google seeing 100 links in 1 day, this wont happen, most directories take from 12hours to 3 months to approve submissions so they will appear gradually and then Google has to find them.

DMOZ takes about 15 seconds to submit to and is wel worth it. A lot of sites mirror small sections of DMOZ and therefore give you a lot of links! Recently the top 10 sites in a niche I was targeting all had links from sites mirroring DMOZ on their links page. I agree time can be better spent elsewhere, however there are companies which will submit to the top100 directories for only £20 or something and its worth it. As for Google seeing 100 links in 1 day, this wont happen, most directories take from 12hours to 3 months to approve submissions so they will appear gradually and then Google has to find them.

 

How much significant traffic a directory can bring to me? This is a normal question specially if your customer will pay for example to get into Yahoo directory.

If someone wants to share some numbers about traffic from directories, I would really appreciate.

Personally I think they're pretty useless and not nearly as valuable as a year or so ago. There are some good directories out there, don't get me wrong, but you'll most likely have to spend money for anything half decent. Look at directories and how they're indexed on Google. For example I just looked at linkdirectory.com and the only well indexed pages are at top level. Anything in a sub category is pretty useless and that's all you'll get for free.

 

Google pretty much killed off directories a while back. DMOZ being effective is debatable these days although it's probably still one of the best directories to get listed on. The only problem is it's constantly getting more and more of a backlog meaning it takes a very long time to get listed (if you're successful). That's my thought on the subject through my experience, maybe some other people have had more luck and disagree

How much significant traffic a directory can bring to me? This is a normal question specially if your customer will pay for example to get into Yahoo directory.

If someone wants to share some numbers about traffic from directories, I would really appreciate.

Apart from the big and popular directories, most of them (I'd say 95%+) receive next to no traffic at all, so in real terms they are next to useless.

 

Some directories that have odd pages with decent Pagerank attract SEO types and marketeers who wet their pants when they see "PR6 submissions open", but other than for link juice they often don't really serve any useful purpose.

 

When the subject of directory submission comes up I always suggest only submitting to niche based directories rather than general ones. If anything a niche directory will at least send you people who are interested in the same subject as you site.

 

For the record I've been running a niche links directory for 10 years now. I've never bothered doing any promotion or "SEO" on it ever, yet it's always returned 1st page seach results for dozens if not hundreds of keyword combos associated with the niche. I get hundreds of link submissions every month for totally unrelated sites from "SEO's" and marketing people which I joyfully delete. Apparently many pages have a good PR though I have never checked, I couldn't care less because the site was made for my visitors not marketing people.

Apart from the big and popular directories, most of them (I'd say 95%+) receive next to no traffic at all, so in real terms they are next to useless.

 

Some directories that have odd pages with decent Pagerank attract SEO types and marketeers who wet their pants when they see "PR6 submissions open", but other than for link juice they often don't really serve any useful purpose.

 

When the subject of directory submission comes up I always suggest only submitting to niche based directories rather than general ones. If anything a niche directory will at least send you people who are interested in the same subject as you site.

 

For the record I've been running a niche links directory for 10 years now. I've never bothered doing any promotion or "SEO" on it ever, yet it's always returned 1st page seach results for dozens if not hundreds of keyword combos associated with the niche. I get hundreds of link submissions every month for totally unrelated sites from "SEO's" and marketing people which I joyfully delete. Apparently many pages have a good PR though I have never checked, I couldn't care less because the site was made for my visitors not marketing people.

 

Thank you for your input and I truly agree with you. Niche directory still useful, but for general purpose, I would think twice before spend money and time.

 

Now I need to convince my boss(that gave me a list of exactly 100 directories to submit our sites by an automatic system) that is not worth...

 

Anyhow, thanks for this topic.

 

Cheers!

I agree it's the topical nature of the directory that is important. If you are optimising for a local business then adding backlinks to local directories is a sure fire way to improve your SERPs for searches phrases relating to localities.

Now I need to convince my boss(that gave me a list of exactly 100 directories to submit our sites by an automatic system) that is not worth...

Auto submissions? the chances are that most of these directories are nothing more than link dumping grounds and you'll net next to nothing from them

Other than submitting to a handful of the top directories, DMOZ, Yahoo, BOTW etc, you are wasting time submitting to directories, that are virtually ignored by Google.

 

Concentrate on link diversity.