Directory Backlinks - Worth anything?

BlackHatSoda

BlackHatSoda

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A few years ago, I decided to try one of those manual directory submission services. Didn't cost much and a couple hundred directories ended up keeping my link without having to link back to them. The anchor text was mixed up and the links were added over a few weeks to look a bit more natural.

After 4 months, I didn't see any gain in PR or ranking for the targeted keywords. I did bi-monthly rank checks using Advanced Web Ranking software so I would have seen any positive gain. Never really tried directories again.

I see people talking about this directory is PR4 and that one is PR6 or whatever but the fact is that is just for the domain/index page. The page that YOUR link is on is probably a PR1 if you are lucky but usually PR0 or without a PR at all.

So I'm wondering, has anyone seen actual, verified increases in ranking from directory backlinks?
 
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I don't think they work much either. I tried a manual directory submition recently and didn't see any improvements in my seo.

Aaron Wall, from seobook lists directory submitions as one of the bad ways to build backlinks:
Code: 
http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
 
I did the same, 500 dir submission, for 2 year the PR did not change, very little traffic then after I started to see some traffic for some keywords and finally made my first sale. :)
 
Sometimes new sites after directory submission even got banned by google.
So I suggest submit to high PR directories and only after you got some low PR backlinks.
 
I can confirm 100% without a doubt that free directory submits, only submitted to PR1+ directories has improved many of my webdesign company local sites SERPS. On several sites, it was the only promotion that happened!

We use free dir submits as part of a more rounded approach on larger or more competitive niche's, varying link anchors and descriptions, spread over time, and total of 400-800 of them in a 12 month period.

PageRank is another matter. I don't use it as a measure of success, as my clients and my personal projects only seek to rank high in organic results and not score a certain PR.
 
Directories aren't worth the time, it just looks so cool to us link builders because it's advertised as getting thousands of directory links for $8 submission service. It's that get rankings quick mechanism that's in all of our heads.

You can beat our your competitors by getting quality links instead of spending your money on crappy directories...
 
oh yes.if the site is aged and has got itself some link love,then it is worth getting a link.Remember that the links will be much better if they come from unique c-class Ips.so do not forget to do directory submissions.The same applies to the article submissions too.But if you know a lot of link building sources then these submissions are not needed at all.If you are short of the link sources then these can be really helpful.
 
links from directories used to be worth something like 5-10 years but after so many abuses,link farms,buying links which google is against, made the search engines not care about them or sometimes even punish sites who have links from link farms, there used to be only a few directories worth submitting to (yah00,business,c0m,j0eant etc..) but they are expensive and i doubt even they arent worth much now, lets hope this wont happen to article directories too
 
A few directory links is good e.g. local business directories, links from directories specifically for your niche and maybe a few of the established ones like joeant and jayde. Apart from that the general ones are good for getting the numbers up but wont provide you with any real juice.
 
The high PR directories are still worth the bother but most aren't because you don't get any worthwhile backlink text, just your domain URL.
 
i autosubmitted to about 5000 directories for one of my sites, and roughly 3000 turned into back links. my pr went from NA to 2 a few months after i ran the submits. but that was a while ago... it might not work with google's new parameters.

however, from the 3k links, i got roughly 30-100 visits a day from them.
so it worked well for me.
 
From what I've read recently from Matt Cutts, it seems that the vast majority of directories have be discounted by Google so while getting a backlink from them won't hurt you, it won't help either.

The big directories like Yahoo and DMOZ are exceptions but it seems with the smaller ones, they've ether been rendered useless or it's just a matter of time before Google sniffs them out and adds them to their list of discounted sites.

Considering it's fast, cheap and easy to submit to lots of them, I guess it may still be worth something, if only for a while but you'd have to be building backlinks from real content sites as well.

I read about one example that Google showed where a site had thousands of backlinks but in Google's eyes, only 3 of them were being factored into it's PR so the quality of the link is king.

I may try directory submissions again on a new site as a test but do the submissions myself using 3rd party software so I can very gradually gain the backlinks, over the course of months rather than days or weeks.

I'll let you know how it goes.
 
IMO, they general directories are useless.

The only ones I consider (paid) are Business.com, BOTW, Yahoo and maybe a couple more.

Also ok, if you can locate a few directories that are very specific to your niche.
 
Is this the self nominations for the SEO n00b olympics thread? Any one who says directory links are useless is a muppet. He who has the most indexed links wins, end of story.

the trick to directories & all submission spamming is to promote the promoter. How fuckn hard is it to dump your directory list into your copy of xrunner,autopligg & BMD and slam the page? Just because the a directory sucks dosn't mean the page your link is on has to suck.
 
I did pretty well with directories a few years ago. Never got any traffic from them but I did move up on the SERPS.
 
Stop thinking that a link can hurt you by getting your target website banned or penalized.

The worst thing that can happen is a waste of time, most likely little benefit.

Links in directories for small niches I am quite positive that are very useful.
General directories have to be very reputable to provide some real benefit in rankings.

2 cents based on my modest experience.
 
It`s always interesting to see how many of my directory submissions appear in google webmasters account while other type of backlinks that would be considered stronger, do not.

Is it just chance? I don't think so. :)
 
the main problem is that you rarely can find a list of 400-500 ACTIVE directories that verify and add your site within less than a month.
From my own experiences only 5~10% of them will be active and therefore you have to add your site to 1000 web directories to get just 50 60 backlinks!
 
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