There’s a lot of talk and rumour floating around SEO circles at the moment regarding Google’s attitude and apparent clamp down on paid for links on websites. For those that don’t know the score: everyone seemingly wants a higher Google page rank (PR) because higher PR equals higher Search Engine positions (SERPs), right? So, using basic SEO methodology whereby sites with PR linking to other sites effectively pass a vote of confidence in the destination site, unscrupulous Webmasters have been buying up high PR links to point to their site using the Google bombing technique to strengthen SERP’s on specific key phrases.
So, what’s the problem? Well to be honest, it’s a bit rich coming from Google because at the end of the day, their paid for advertising business model is built on the fundamental principles of linking to sites through textual advertising. What’s annoyed the boys and girls at Google HQ is the apparent attempts to undermine their algorithm using these techniques.
But how do Google recognise a ‘paid for link’? Good question. How can they? We think it’s no coincidence that Google have actively increased their exposure and opportunities for webmasters to ‘grass’ on such sites either selling or benefiting from paid links, but is this all Google have? Having looked through Google best practice pages earlier today, we see that they don’t entirely want to destroy the paid link marketplace, but suggest this:
* Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the tag * Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file
Google go on to explain that a site with good unique quality content will naturally attract sites linking to it anyway but the problem is, not all of us have unique content sites (I’d say very few do) and even those that do, still need to attract the linking sites in the first place - a bit of chicken and egg scenario.
Where will it all end? Google now say they don’t approve of active reciprocal linking, they don’t approve of paid for text linking to manipulate their algorithms, and they don’t like Directories very much either. This begs the obvious question: How important is Page Rank nowadays? There is a definite kudos value but anything tangible? Sites with low or even zero PR are appearing above sites with high PR. We can honestly say, the latest PR assessment has made very little difference to sites we monitor either in terms of an increase in SERPs for those with PR improvement or a drop for those with a decrease.
At the end of the day, some elements of SEO can be so borderline between being ethical and unethical, that we feel many a good guy is going to get penalised through unintentionally annoying Google, and some of the unethical black hat guys will still benefit from PR manipulation.
Will PR still be around 2 years from now? There’s increased talk that possibly not…but time will surely tell.
The newest emergence and by far the hottest item in the directory industry right now is bid directories. The concept of bid directories is simple, bid the highest - rank the highest. But, as easy as it sounds, some of the major bid directories out there are a lot to swallow, at least financially.
By the numbers on first page top bids: Big Web Links - $3,000. Web Directory List - $1,050 Blaze Directory - $1,000 Web Directory Bid - $901 Dollar Linking - $763 CDHNow - $600
By the numbers on first page top bids:
Big Web Links - $3,000. Web Directory List - $1,050 Blaze Directory - $1,000 Web Directory Bid - $901 Dollar Linking - $763 CDHNow - $600
Many directory owners have been really put off from the high first page values and some don’t understand the underlying secret to the bid directories.
Bid with Moderation
There is no need to shell out $1,000 per link. If you think about it, that’s a bad decision in itself as you can be building more quality links in the meantime instead of investing heavily in 1 place. Do it in moderation and over time your rank will increase.
For example: Paying the initial $49.90 on Big Web Links gets you 5 payments of $50 away from the top links page. This could come over the next 5 months or you could choose to invest every 3 or so months, depending on your budget.
Bid for Placement within Categories
A lot of the fuss with bid directories is about being on the main page, with inevitably has the highest pagerank and traffic. However, site owners sometimes fail to realize there is more than the first page and that many of the inner pages carry equal value in terms of pagerank and link value.
For example:
The highest bid on category “W” at Web Directory Bid is $889. However, a link of almost equal value within the category pages for “W” costs ONLY $67 (Pagerank 6 link). That’s a savings $822 for getting a equal link on a PR6 page with traffic. Not bad eh?
The First Page Delivers
If you invest in the first page bids, your investment will return ten fold. The ideal spot on bid directories in inevitably the first bid, however, being #10 delivers too. It delivers the highest exposure, the highest link value (pagerank), as well as the highest traffic. Traffic? On a Directory? Fortunately Yes, the evolvement into bidding directories has allowed the industry to now focus on more than just a high valued link and deliver traffic to the site owners.
Some Estimated Traffic Numbers from Top Bid Directories: Big Web Links delivers over 8,500+ Uniques per day to the main page and inner categories. Web Directory List and CDHNow deliver over 5,000+ Uniques per day to the main page and inner categories. Web Directory Bid estimates it’s traffic to be in the thousands per day from search terms and to it’s individual categories.
Some Estimated Traffic Numbers from Top Bid Directories:
Big Web Links delivers over 8,500+ Uniques per day to the main page and inner categories. Web Directory List and CDHNow deliver over 5,000+ Uniques per day to the main page and inner categories. Web Directory Bid estimates it’s traffic to be in the thousands per day from search terms and to it’s individual categories.
The recent blog post over at Matt Cutt’s blog about reporting of paid links has turned webmasters on edge about the future of directories, especially bid directories. However, what they fail to realize is bid directories are essentially identical to regular directories, with the main difference in the sorting method. Also, in many cases, bid directories are more beneficial for website owners as they provide higher amounts of traffic if the sites are on the first page. Generally, regular directories do not feature websites on the main page and most users have to delve into categories to find sites.
Bid directories are a perfect fit for website promotion as they provide link value as well as traffic for your sites.
Many SEO’s may tell you that meta tags are a forgotten importance among search engine optimization these days. However, with directories, it’s a must when setting up category structure and detail pages.
Why are meta tags important in directories?
Why does that matter?
Writing unique keywords and descriptions for every category can be a arduous task, so my advice is:
After following those few pointers, you’ll be well on your way out of the supplemental results and on with a more quality, search engine friendly directory.
Jeff, from Aviva Directory, has come up with an interesting resource to track the number of backlinks shown in Yahoo! for popular directories.
The leader of course, with over 633,418,783 backlinks (yeah, that’s insane) is Yahoo! Directory.
Fourfind comes in on the list with over 146,000+ backlinks, not bad for only a few months promotion.
Anyways, it’s definitely an interesting resource.
Check it out: Which directories have the most backlinks?
Although I haven’t really been keeping up with the contests over at PHPLD, I figured I’d enter Fourfind into this month’s contest because I’ve made a bunch of changes and feel it has a chance of winning with it’s unique structure, mods, and quality.
Rules From David of PHPLD:
Please read the rules carefully below. 1. The winner of the July 2007 contest will be chosen because they have done an exceptional job in one or more of the following areas: A. Site Design B. Integration of additional or innovative features C. Quality Content D. Contribution to the phpLD or directory community as a whole. This last factor counts less. 2. Once voting begins, no other sites can be added to the contest. Voting will begin at least a week from now. 3. It is okay to nominate yourself. 4. Voting will be done by a panel of judges who do not have a directory in the contest this month. The judges names will not be published. It is not okay to contact a judge about a site in the contest. 5. There will be more than one round in the voting. First, we will narrow it down to 10 sites (if there are more than 10 nominations). Then 5. Then we will select a winner.
Please read the rules carefully below. 1. The winner of the July 2007 contest will be chosen because they have done an exceptional job in one or more of the following areas:
2. Once voting begins, no other sites can be added to the contest. Voting will begin at least a week from now. 3. It is okay to nominate yourself. 4. Voting will be done by a panel of judges who do not have a directory in the contest this month. The judges names will not be published. It is not okay to contact a judge about a site in the contest. 5. There will be more than one round in the voting. First, we will narrow it down to 10 sites (if there are more than 10 nominations). Then 5. Then we will select a winner.
It’s unclear what the prize is currently, but it should be interesting.
You can submit your nominations here.
(wb) Russ