Thread: Are Directory submissions Still Effective After Google Panda Update?

I agree that local listing and those directories are related niche are trusted directories.

Originally Posted by ipraxa

I did do a variety of homepage links and inner page links and title of pages. I wouldn't do more than one link per directory. I'd stick to high quality directories, over a longer period of time. Brand names are good and URLs.

A directory is not a high quality directory if the inner pages all have a PageRank of n/a. That is Google's way of saying that they do not like the directory. The only PageRank that matters is the page where your link appears. The home page PageRank is irrelevant unless that is where your link appears.

Directory submission are powerful promotional tools that get the attention of search engine spiders towards a site. The more the number of directories to which you submit your site, the more times spiders will index your site. It is not totally dead...

Originally Posted by TopDogger

A directory is not a high quality directory if the inner pages all have a PageRank of n/a. That is Google's way of saying that they do not like the directory. The only PageRank that matters is the page where your link appears. The home page PageRank is irrelevant unless that is where your link appears.

OK, so if the inner page your link is located has pagerank, then pagerank of that page itself is still relevant?

Originally Posted by firetown

OK, so if the inner page your link is located has pagerank, then pagerank of that page itself is still relevant?

Yes. That is how PageRank is passed. When Google penalizes a page to prevent the passing of PR, the PR goes to n/a. When there is no PR, there is no PR to pass. For some reason they rarely do that for home pages, but they commonly do it for inner pages.

The PageRank may be relevant, but the link can still be a problem if the site has been flagged as a crappy site or an unrelated site by Penguin.

Link quality and PageRank are two separate issues. Home page PR is not an indication of site quality. I only use PR today as a tool to see if a site has been penalized. If all of the inner pages of a mature site show a PR of n/a, that site has been slapped by Google and the links are useless or possibly harmful. I would not even trust a home page link from a site where all of the inner pages are penalized.

Originally Posted by puspasri

Directory submission are powerful promotional tools that get the attention of search engine spiders towards a site. The more the number of directories to which you submit your site, the more times spiders will index your site. It is not totally dead...

Sorry, but I cannot agree with that statement. A good quality site does not have a problem getting indexed. It looks like you have not been paying attention to the fallout from Penguin -- or you own a directory -- or you are a link builder. A poor quality link is still a poor quality link. It does not matter if your site is getting indexed if the links are harming your Google rankings. I have seen a lot of sites that have lost most of their Google traffic because they relied too much on directory links set up by the link builders in India. Local business directories are a different story because Google tends to like them.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

Yes. That is how PageRank is passed. When Google penalizes a page to prevent the passing of PR, the PR goes to n/a. When there is no PR, there is no PR to pass. For some reason they rarely do that for home pages, but they commonly do it for inner pages.

The PageRank may be relevant, but the link can still be a problem if the site has been flagged as a crappy site or an unrelated site by Penguin.

Link quality and PageRank are two separate issues. PR is not an indication of quality. Do not judge a site solely by its home page PR. I only use PR today as a tool to see if a site has been penalized. If all of the inner pages of a mature site show a PR of n/a, that site has been slapped by Google and the links are useless or possibly harmful. I would not even trust a home page link from a site where all of the inner pages are penalized.

I have noticed that with a local website for hostels. They have a folder of links and none of their pages is ranked high. But the links they get back managed to get them first page Google for the main term.

And their site offers no value other than being a pseudo directory.

I believe Google gives a little more slack to sites which are very "niche" compared to those that target broader and more popular terms.

Regardless, I have submitted to their 3 sites which are all auto accepting the submission and I did receive a boost from page 15 to page 3. But a week later I disappeared again, this time completely. Now I am somewhere page 7 resurrecting slowly.

Originally Posted by firetown

Regardless, I have submitted to their 3 sites which are all auto accepting the submission and I did receive a boost from page 15 to page 3. But a week later I disappeared again, this time completely. Now I am somewhere page 7 resurrecting slowly.

There is a difference between ranking algorithm changes and filters. Ranking algorithms tend to change rankings for large numbers of sites mostly at one time. Filters are run separately and are more random. They can flag a poor quality page, duplicate content issue or a linking issue at any time. It sometimes takes months. Some autoblogs are still successful because they constantly add new pages, but the older pages drop out of Google over time as they get filtered out.

I see. And that page does receive a lot of traffic from what I see as it now ranks around number 5 for the sought after keyterm, so I assume submissions are constant.

Originally Posted by TopDogger

There is a difference between ranking algorithm changes and filters. Ranking algorithms tend to change rankings for large numbers of sites mostly at one time. Filters are run separately and are more random. They can flag a poor quality page, duplicate content issue or a linking issue at any time. It sometimes takes months. Some autoblogs are still successful because they constantly add new pages, but the older pages drop out of Google over time as they get filtered out.