I read an amusing magazine article that the boss of a rival local SEO company had written recently. Before I start, I should mention that this ‘SEO Specialist’ was actually working in a chemical plant in the UK 2 years ago and still maintains a couple of websites selling chemicals online even now. I’m constantly amazed how SEO experts qualify their occupational description…did they strike it lucky with a key phrase on one of their sites and now think they are in the position to advise others? There’s another ‘Specialist’ in our neighbourhood in the very competitive Costa Del Sol area of Southern Spain. This 2nd guy is a builder by day an an SEO expert by night! Seriously. You guys would roll around laughing if I showed you his own attempts at SEO on his template created website on a PR0. Hhhmmm. Maybe it’s me being bitter in my old age.

Anyway, in this article, the guy was basically spelling out to the audience what SEO was and what he considers the benefits over PPC or other forms of online marketing to be. There were some inaccuracies and a level of naivety but nevertheless, he wasn’t too far off the mark for a high level ‘heads up’. The guys argument was based on the fact that ‘it costs you money’ to be at the top of Google et al using a PPC advertising model, but SEO is ‘Free’. He also stated, quite proudly, that his site (which shall remain nameless) never advertises…he claims they don’t need to.

A day or so later, by coincidence, a client of mine (an estate agent) forwarded an email to me from this guy whereby this guy (the one who’d written the article) was offering his SEO Services. The email finished by stating his monthly ‘retainer’…around 100 Euros I think from memory ($125).

Now ok, $125 is not much, but this guy was offering services to a VERY small village community where SERPs were relatively easy to come by on targeted key phrases in all but the most competitive industry there…Real Estate. What the guy failed to realise is that most of the area’s Real Estate agents were using PPC and paying no more than around $150 or so a month in their PPC budget and with an average CPC of say $0.50, they were near enough assured 300 landed clicks, so a potentially good ROI (the area is rural Spain but 80% + buyers are from the UK, Denmark, Germany etc so an Internet presence is a no brainer). The SEO approach obviously guarantees nothing, but for a similar fee.

I’m all for SEO, I do afterall run an SEO and PPC agency, but the naivety of some people never fails to amaze me, neither does the pedigree of so called SEO experts coming out of the woodwork. Oh, I should finish by saying that I was playing around on google this morning and found this guys website listed under the brand term on Google Adwords. If a so called SEO Guru can’t optimise his own site for his own brand term, then what hope is there for his highly generic and competitive client terms and phrases?

I’ve been meaning to write my insight into the latest trends for directories and their owners for a while. Over the last few months, I’ve been noticing good and bad trends occurring in and around directories. I’m going to cover a few topics that I’d like to voice my opinion about and I’d like to know your thoughts as well…

Last Pagerank Update

Many of us were greeted well with the last pr update, some of course better than others. We saw a large increase in quality, Pagerank 6 directories (Such as eWebPages.org and Romow). However, with the addition of new quality directories getting and deserving their pagerank, we also saw a drop in some of the strongest directories on the web. Why? It’s really unknown. Google decided to drop directories as Alive Directory, with almost 2,000,000 backlinks, from a Pagerank 7 to a Pagerank 6, while newer bidding directories, such as Web Directory Bid and Big Web Links gained new PR7 prestige. Not only did this shift leave me scratching my head, but I was also puzzled as to why some directories gained higher pagerank inner categories, such as Linkbook.org, which has a pagerank 4 homepage and almost all pagerank 6 inner pages. Is this a Google hiccup like last year’s April update? It doesn’t look like it as not longer after last year’s update, there was a correction. It should be interesting to see what happens with these particular sites in the upcoming July/August toolbar pagerank export.

Pagerank Prediction

Almost all directory owners are well aware of iwebtool’s vast array of webmaster tools. Within the toolset, iwebtool provides the coveted “Google Pagerank Prediction” tool. A very interesting tool to say the least, it’s most likely one of the most popular tools on iwebtool’s site because it gives webmasters and directory owner’s a look into the potential future of their sites pagerank. This glimpse of the future is highly inaccurate.

The problems with the Pagerank Prediction as a promotion tool:

1. Webmasters use this tool to announce their directories on false or inflated information. Just by doing a search of “Predicted” in the Announcement section of Digital Point, over 45 threads were found containing the word “predicted” and with phrases like “Get in Now” or “PR will Rise”, etc, etc.
2. It’s own “accuracy” is almost100% inaccurate. There is absolutely no way to predict accurately the upcoming pagerank of a site, especially with the last few interesting updates from Google.
3. False hope increases prices. Just because your site is predicted a Pagerank 5, doesn’t mean your prices can be justified for a pagerank 5 directory.

Pagestrength

Pagestrength, a measurement tool to estimate the value of a website from various amounts of pulled data, was developed by SEOMoz.org. The tool had a lot of promise and webmasters really welcomed it as an alternative to pagerank. However, it may have been too popular. Bogged down by queries, the tool as well as the results struggled to pull data from sources and almost always needed to be refreshed. As the problems worsened, SEOMoz decided to limit 1 fetch per day or users could subscribe to their services for $39.00/month to get unlimited queries. This was highly unpopular move by SEOMoz and many of the loyal users were outraged at the switch. Many of them labeled SEOMoz as a part of the “Quick Buck Crew” by providing a faulty tool for such a steep price. It’s really a shame that such an interesting tool had a fast and ugly downfall. Which brings me to the next issue, Quick Buck Crews.

Quick Buck Crew aka “QBC”

By the title, it’s not hard to understand the latest webmaster label given to those owners who set up directories or other sites strictly to make a “quick buck”. This trend makes me angry. Almost daily do I see a thread with an absurb domain name used for a directory with a title “PR6 Toilet54 Web Directory - Submit Today!”.

So, I’ve come up with a list of ways to determine a QBC directory:

1. The domain is completely unrelated to the directory industry. Ex: Toilet54 Directory, Mesothelioma-Lawyers General Directory
2. The domain uses a free template (with or without removing the sponsored links), keeps the default template logo and uses a category dump.
3. The domain used is for a niche, yet the category structure is for a general directory. Use common sense QBC’s!
4. High PR homepage on a unrelated domain with no pagerank inner pages.
5. Over 15 Sitewide footer or sidebar links that are unrelated to the directory and are sold permanent or yearly for a low price.
6. Announces a directory for 1 week and sells it the next week after approving or selling links on it.
7. Previously dropped or expired domain with 0 Backlinks, yet still showing high pr.

Sponsored Themes

This is another topic that I’ve been wanting to share my opinion on for some time now. To be honest, I love that designers are releasing quality themes for free use on a variety of different blogging or directory platforms. It’s bringing creativity and less homogeneity to both industries. However, what I’ve been noticing lately is the ridiculous amount of sponsored links in the footers of these templates.

Sponsored by: Bidding Directory ~ Casino Cash ~ Amish Settlers ~ Toilet54 Directory
Designed by: X Designers Inc

Are you serious? Why in the world would I as a blogger or directory owner want to use your template if the entire footer is covered in links, which sometimes aren’t even related to the directory industry. This is a prime example of another version of the Quick Buck Crew.

To those who buy those spots:

What are you thinking? Yeah, it may be inexpensive to sponsor a theme for $50-$150, but You do know that you’re not getting your money’s worth by putting your link among 4 other links. Not to mention, the probability is pretty high that someone will download the theme, see all those links, and delete them because they want that for there own QBC footer links.

If you are going to sponsor a released theme, only sponsor up to 2 Links.

Sponsored by: Your Web Directory - Designed by: Web Designers

That is the safest and best way to go to insure your investment and the quality of that backlink.

Owner Clashes and Bickering

This is probably the most annoying trend now over at Digital Point. I’ve limited my reading and contributing there to a few threads and posts per day due to the constant complaining, bickering, childish activity that has engulfed the directory forums area. It all arised from mod development, dmoz submissions, and any other controversial issues that have been made apparent by some obnoxious members. Just an FYI, this activity isn’t helping anything and at best is allowing members to find other communities that don’t support the non-stop drama that is erupting from those handful of members.

Enough is enough already.

That’s what i’ve been thinking about lately, let me know your thoughts…