Is That Directory Worth Submitting To?

It was interesting to see the number of questions that came in through comments and email after I ran the post below (Directory Submission Discount Codes) asking if Directories were still a viable link source.

If you follow this blog you know I think they have a place in your overall link building efforts but shouldn't be done as a stand-alone tactic. I consider them part of your foundational linking efforts and not your ranking salvation.

In my opinion, there are a lot of free and paid directories that are worthless for various reasons. Here's the short litmus test I use when trying to decide if a Directory is worth my time or money:

1. Is the directory page your link will sit on in the index of G and Y?

If the page your URL will be added to doesn't show up in the index, then it does you no good ranking wise. Then you have to decide if the traffic alone is worth it.

2. When was the page last cached?

If more than a couple weeks, you need to check for exclusions and nofollows. Or ask why. Or just move along.

3. Does the page have more adsense ads than submissions on it?

This is a particular pet peeve of mine. I don't think I need to compete with adsense ads when paying for a listing. If there's as many ads as submissions, I walk.

4. Does the directory allow you to deep link?

Linking to your main dot com is good, deep linking is better.

5. Does the directory allow you to use your own Title?

It's more advantageous for me to use "Link Building Firm" than Alliance-Link in my submission Title if I'm linking for rank. On the other hand, a handful of links with my company name doesn't hurt either.

6. Does the directory offer a lifetime link?

This is personal preference but - pay it once, be done with it, move on. If you go the annual route you may be asked to pay more the next year. My exception to my lazy-pay-it-once rule is Business.com

7. Is the directory listed in the Google Directory and/or the DMOZ?

The answer to that one should be self explanatory :)

http://www.google.com/Top/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/
http://www.dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/

If you spend a little time poking around all the Directory categories on the DMOZ you'll find a bunch of juicy little aged directory nuggets to add your site to, buy mailing lists from or strike up a promotional advertising deal. Use them for all they're worth!

Directory Savings - BOTW & Aviva

Our friends at Best Of The Web are offering a promotion code for discounted submissions to their Directory now through the end of the month. Here's the details:

Throughout the year, we like to provide our valued members with savings on additional BOTW listings. It's been a while since our last promotion, so this month we offer you the opportunity to save big. From now until the end of March, you can SAVE 25% on All NEW Submissions and Sponsorship Advertising in the Best of the Web Directory and BOTW Blog Directory.

When prompted, enter the following Promo Code: SAVEBIG

Be sure to enter the Promo Code: "SAVEBIG" during the sign up process and you will instantly save 25% on new directory submissions as well as sponsorship advertising products.

The promo code may be used multiple times for multiple products and services during the month of March. Remember - the code will expire on March 31, 2008 so be sure to take advantage of the 25% discount before it's too late!

If you've bee thinking about submitting your site to BOTW, now's the time!

ADDED:

An email came in from Jeff at the Aviva Directory with a discount special of their own, here's what they're offering:

Aviva Directory has just turned 3 years old. We could not have made it this far without your valuable support. To thank you, we are offering all clients a third birthday special of$20 off all new submissions - both regular and featured.

To take advantage of this special offer, simply enter the following coupon code into the coupon field when submitting: birthday3

You can use this code for multiple submissions.This offer will expire at the end of March - on March 31, 2008. So, hurry and take advantage of it before the special ends. We look forward to many more birthdays in the future, and continuing to provide you with a top quality web directory.

Any other directories out there want to add a discount code? Bring.it.on!

Dude, Where's My Leap Link?

Hey there, hope all is well out in linkland. I have a couple things to share:

If you've been thinking about doing SES New York, here's a priority code for a 20% discount when you register: 20SPKRGUST. Be sure to stop by the linking session on Wednesday, March 19 and say hello, I'll be there talking about links again.

Good news! The Aviva Directory is back in Google's index with a new and "improved" outlook on link life. Jeff wrote an awesome post on what happened and how they changed what they were doing to get back in Google's good graces. You'll find the whole post here on the Aviva blog. Thanks for sharing what you learned and here's to living in the green from here on out!

Two more things and both are from Search Engine Roundtable.

If you didn't make it to SMX, here's the week's recaps minus the one I'm supposed to be doing on the Linking Basics session. Pretty sad when you have to cover your own session 'cuz none of your cohorts thinks it's sexy enough.

Oh well, note to self: next time we do a Linking Basic's panel...pack push-up bra and convince Eric to show some chest hair.

The other thing from SERoundtable is a post about how paid links can hurt you. Yep, you read that right, seems there's been chatter about how your competitors really can slap you into the penalty box. We'll see. People also go on and on about how funneling PageRank is the next coming and duplicate content means the end of search life as we know it. Hmmm.

Our friend Matt McGee has a great post on the new Yelp/Yahoo! relationship:

At the bottom of every business profile page on Yelp, right next to the “Write a Review” button, there are now links to view the appropriate category results page on Yahoo Local. And even better, those are followed links with terrific keyword usage in the anchor text.

Smart move Yahoo!, that Yelp is a keeper and you got there first, nice.

During the Link Building Basics session at SMX I had a slide in my tactics section that said this:

• Ask your customers to write reviews on Yahoo! Local and Yelp.

Especially now with what you know about Yahoo! and Yelp, it may be a very good time to develop some sort of incentivized review program with your customers. Or at the very least, point them to both Yelp and Yahoo! and encourage them to add a review.

This will put some pressure on customer service departments which is a good thing, with people using the review sites and the results surfacing across the Web, companies will have to be at the top of their game or suffer humiliation and loss of sales. Which can be good and bad I guess... this has the potential to affect small business when it's really the big guys that need the kick.

Hmmm (a lot of humming tonight) I wonder if my suggestion to encourage people to review could be seen as spamming. Could be I guess, since Yelp is considered one of those social media sites.

On the other hand, I'm really not sure why, is encouraging people to leave a review on Yelp any different than offering a discount on the back of a printed receipt? You've seen those - call a 800 number, take a survey and you get a discount code for a future purchase. Maybe it's the paper that makes it all public relations instead of spamming.

Who knows. Ok enough from me, have a great weekend. :)

Junior Link Goes To College

Via MediaPost:

"At an estimated value of $10 billion, some feel News Corp. has gotten all the mileage it can out of MySpace, which skeptics say is fading in light of the resurgence of rival Facebook."

Could it be all those kids on MySpace have grown up and headed off to college? Or if the info in this article from the BBC is accurate, they're out working...

MySpace users tend to get a job after finishing high school rather than continue their education.

Afterall, who's going to pay for that high speed connection now the free high school ride is over?

Either way, it's interesting to note that life online emulates life off, kids grow up and move along, whether it's out of moms house or off their social network. So it makes sense Facebook is picking up steam, LinkedIn is enjoying growing membership and Eons was created.

It also makes sense the fickle and tech savvy youth of today could be waiting for their favorite network to implement something like Vizster, a proposed visual social network created by two UCBerkely researchers using data they experienced and pulled from Friendster. You've always been able to see your friends on the networks but now you can see their's too. Hey LinkedIn, are you listening?

The link point to all this is - if your products are demographically targeted, you need to move along with your group and look to the next big congregation point for potential advertising and linking spots. Kids grow up and adults change interest, know where they're going and why, meet them when they get there.

Even if what you sell isn't focused on a particular type person (who doesn't like chocolate?) think ahead. Get involved in sites like Trendwatching and keep an eye of what's being talked about. Be proactive and link ahead.

Utility Linking

What is utility linking? It's the process of looking for specialty directories or related websites by searching on established phrases like "submit URL" or "add a site" plus your keywords.

The good people at SoloSEO created a tool that does a lot of the work for you. Insert a keyword, pick an engine and go to town looking for sites to add your link to.

http://www.soloseo.com/tools/linkSearch.html?keyword=

It's time consuming but you'll get a handful of links out of it.

Interesting Links.

Some interesting link related tidbits from around Internet Land...





Have a beef with your beer boss?

Use YouTube to get the word out. Personally I think it should be against the law to give a webcam to whiney people. http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/blog/2007/03/miller_brewing_.html
(Sidenote) If they were Anheuser-Busch employees that video would have a link at the end pointing people to a well crafted landing page asking for donations toward their retirement fund. ;)-

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A post on the HR Forum asks - Are there any specific tips on getting edu sites to link to my site?

My buddy Randy Cullom responds: How to get .edu links? Have a site with subject matter that appeals to the education market. Without this connection as a reason for them to link to your site you're basically SOL. As to whether .edu's carry any special weight, we've discussed 'em around here a few times before. The short answer is: No they don't carry any magic link juice. Their magic, if you want to call it that, is they're usually very large, very diverse, usually decent quality sites that attract a lot of links from other diverse, quality sites. In other words, it's not the .edu TLD that carries any extra weight. It's the fact that they're high quality sites, just like you can find in .com's, .net's and every other TLD.
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Google's released a new patent application..

Here's some interesting info on how they may determine the quality score of a blog. Bill Slawski has done his usual great job picking apart the patent application and highlighted some of the more interesting parts, here's a few:

Number of times search terms appear in a blog post.

Places where search terms appear within the document (such as title or the text within the body of the post),

Characteristics of search terms appearing on thepages (such as font, size, color, etc.),

Search terms may be weighted differently from other search term when multiple search terms are present.

Proximity of search terms when multiple search terms are present may influence the IR score, and;

Other techniques for determining the IR score for a document can also be used.

Reading through the criteria I was struck by how similar sounding some is to a previous patent app that made the rounds a while back.

http://www.seobythesea.com/?p=541

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Calling all Nine Inch Nail Lovers...

Talk about thinking outside the box to promote your product! Not sure I want to use anything I found hidden in a restroom but hey - the rest is pretty damn interesting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Zero_(album)

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A number of new direstories have been added to ISEdb.com. Might find one to add your site to.

http://www.isedb.com/html/Web_Directories/Specialty_Directories/

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The art of *nicheyness*.

http://www.dogster.com/ http://nurselinkup.com/ http://www.momcafe.com and http://www.eons.com
It's no surprise these niche sites are popping up given the success of "general" networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. Since they're still new and relatively small, it would be a good time to build a profile and get involved as well as buy ad space.

Although MomCafe isn't just for breakfast anymore..... "The site has around 100,000 registered users and is expected to do 20 million page views in March, up from 1.8 million in December 2006."

Power to the soccer moms!

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Link Forum

I pop around to the various link marketing related blogs, forums, elance and techie sites a couple times a week to see what's going on in link marketing land. With so many resources to keep up with it's almost gotten as time consuming as link builidng itself!

I've pulled together a number of informative posts, articles and stories from these sources and will continue to do so as I find them. My formatting is a little off so patience as I work on it to be sure everyone gets proper credit for saying their piece. Here's what's up:

http://www.cre8asiteforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=45325

"Imagine how much effort has been devoted to generating links.... it would probably pay off the US National Debt."
Debra : LOL...

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http://www.seorefugee.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5011&page=2
"I do not think that directories per se are being devalued by Google merely by the fact of them being directories. Instead what I see is a ton of people attempting to build fly by night directories, inflate their value by renting a few high powered links, and then once they have sold their slots dropping the link rentals. Even though the PR of those directories stays until the next PR update, whatever value they had is of course lost once the links are no longer pointing at them. Since the practice is widespread, it does give the appearance of directories in general losing their value. "

Debra: Agree about the directories not being devalued because of what they ARE. Just by what their silly owners DO.
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http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showpost.php?p=9697&postcount=2 ..."The slick part is getting other people to put your articles with a link to you on their sites. Getting them to do it for free is time consuming and gives you no guarantee of anyone doing it or anyone keeping doing it. It does work, but in my experience not as well or as cheaply as just finding and renting the links you want. Making this the least slickest way I'll post here."

Debra: The slickest way to build links is to have other people do it for you. ;)

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http://groups.google.com/group/Google_Webmaster_Help-Indexing/msg/33b3dbdfaba936b1

"Perhaps Google took a second look at your inbound links. 100 links to 50 pages is not enough, especially when most of them are from DMOZ clones or ugly dynamic (forum) URLs. These links don't carry weight. Get more related links from blogs and from within the textual content of related articles on authority sites."

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http://www.highrankings.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29048&pid=242969&st=0&#entry242969

"Given that over half the sites that get listed in DMOZ were never even submitted, then thats not a record. Over 10 000 sites have been added in the last 4 weeks." (post was made 3/10/07)

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http://www.toptechnews.com/story.xhtml?story_id=031000YVYZEV
"Retailers are taking a page from MySpace. They know that customers, especially the younger and more Net-savvy, want to be heard, and they also want to hear what others like them think. So increasingly, retailers are opening up their Web sites to customers, letting them post product reviews, ratings, and in some cases photos and videos. "
Debra: Good ideas for ecommerce sites who find it difficult to attract links.

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http://www.toptechnews.com/news/Blogger-Turns-Paper-Clip-Into-Home/story.xhtml?story_id=031000YVVFWA
"The deal was still warm when MacDonald was contacted by the Mayor of Kipling, Saskatchewan. The town of 1,100 traded MacDonald a three-bedroom house on Main Street in exchange for the movie role. The town plans on holding an "American Idol"-style competition for the part, with entry fees going to charity. "
Debra: Shouldn't that be "Canuck Idol'? (just for you Ian!)