Some directories still work as long as they’re not flooded with spam links. Google is fine with directory as long as they contain good links. The main thing is to vet the directory out prior to adding your link.
Web Directories have been the norm for the world wide web and for search engine optimization for a long time. But are they still relevant in this age of advanced AI Google Updates? Â Well, as Head of Web SPAM at Google John Mueller said,'in general, no'. But the key words in that answer are'in...
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Directories That Are Still Good
Now obviously you’re probably asking “Hey, where can I still find good web directories if all are bad?”
Well… there are some. This isn’t really the purpose of this article, but I’ll only list a few so that you get an idea how modern, useful web directories actually look like.
White Hat SEOs will probably jump and say “How can you recommend profile link building or any sort of web directory link?”
The key word here is RELEVANCY. If the listing is relevant to your site, it is going to help you.
I don’t want you to take “web directories are bad” for granted and miss an opportunity that might actually be helpful to you.
Many search engine optimization experts react badly to blog commenting or forum posts, because they know it doesn’t work. However, blog comments are still the fuel of blogs. Forums are still popular in industries such as music, automotive, health and even fashion.
Matthew Woodward built
an award winning blogand much of his direct and organic traffic was thanks to the posts he made in the BlackHat Forums.
Just don’t spam. Be relevant. Be useful.
An example of good directories were the local sites that might have listings. I can’t really give a specific example, but I hope you get the point. If they have an active social media account, post from time to time and bring in some traffic, you can try to list your local business there.
It all comes down to relevancy. Is the listing relevant to your scope/niche? If yes, go for it!
Here I can give a specific example. SoundCloud is a directory for musicians, for example. If you’re a musician, you can get a profile backlink from your SoundCloud profile. Another similar example is last.fm.
Is this spammy? It could be if you just create a profile and leave it like that. But if you’re a musician, maybe it also makes sense to post on your SoundCloud account from time to time, build an audience there and actually send some traffic to your site through that link and maybe even get some potential customers.
Other good local listing sites are Yelp or maybe Yellow Pages. Although Google has heavily bashed them because they’re evil, it’s still a good place to list your business.
Why Do We Still Have Web Directories?
Most businesses, such as Moz or Yahoo, have closed their directories (Dmoz and Yahoo Directory).
The truth is probably that the web is still full of directories because of low maintenance costs (hosting and domain).
Many directories if not all lack moderators (which actually cost money), but still probably make some small amounts of revenue from advertising.
This whole article idea started from us observing these weird anchor texts such as “.2523765 yourdomain.com” in our tool for multiple clients. You might see these anchor texts in your
cognitiveSEO dashboardas well.
They’re generated by The Globe network, a sort of directory that crawls and indexes websites by simply linking to them on pages which contain thousands of external links. The network is owned by Ascio Technologies Inc (a domain registrar). Luckily, I’ve looked at their backlink profile and they also have the spammy anchor texts, so at least it’s fair.
Their model is different. They want to sell the entire network of sites for millions of dollars. They present it as some sort of world wide web, the most visited site on the planet (which obviously, it isn’t). I’m not sure how old this thing is or how it started, but there’s a BlackHat Forum
thread about the network where you can read more about this.
Google also runs their own directories, especially for businesses.
List your business on Google with a free Business Profile. Turn people who find you on Search & Maps into new customers.
business.google.com
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