Much of the webmaster and marketer chatter lately has been about the “webspam update” vaunted by Google for its proposed reduction of spammy websites and poor quality content. The update has been given the pleasant sounding moniker of the Penguin update but to those that have been hit with a search ranking penalty there is nothing pleasant about. Our clients have been raising questions about the validity of certain link building processes since the Penguin update and the bulk of these questions have concerned the value of links provided by web directories.
What Are Directories?
A web directory is effectively a collection of information that has been grouped together into specific categories. More specifically, web directories tend to be collections of links that are categorised according to the content of the site. There are, in fact, many different types of directories that exist online today ranging from those that are specific to certain industries or even membership groups to those with looser requirements for inclusion.
You may find:
- Paid directories
- Free directories
- Reciprocal directories
- Regional directories
- Industry directories
- General directories
Directories have proven useful in virtually every form of media and while few people may use general directories in a bid to track down specific information or hunt for certain websites, their usefulness cannot be completely ignored.
The Search Engine View Of Web Directories
From the point of view of Google and other search engines, though, such directories have become a breeding ground for links; somewhere that webmasters can create links for their pages without really having to justify that link. Google believes that links should be given based solely on merit and to those websites that are packed full of useful content and providing a beneficial addition to their own search engine ranking pages.
Search engines are also aware that many webmasters and link builders game their system and the directory system by using automated software and other black ha submission techniques.
What Is The Penguin Update?
Penguin has long been classified as the webspam update by those inside Google. While there have been many changes to algorithms made over the years, the last year has seen a major shakeup in how the search engines treat links and the pages in their results. Penguin is just one example but it is garnering a lot of attention because it has led to a lot of web pages experiencing a major drop in their ranking position.
Specifically, the Penguin update targets those pages that are crammed with keywords and utilise inbound links from low quality websites. These changes are nothing new but this round of changes has been more aggressive. The update has also targeted those pages that have a link profile consisting of links using just a single exact match keyword and those that benefit from blog spam and other spammy link building techniques.
The Directory Submission Process
The directory submission process consists of finding a good quality directory and then garnering your website or one of your web pages with a link from that directory. Inbound links are still considered highly important to the search ranking of your website. The search engines still treat them as essentially being editorial votes of quality for the content of a page so while it is necessary to ensure that you follow certain quality guidelines when building directory links, there is still every reason to use these links to help build the popularity of a website.
- Find a directory
- Ensure the directory is suitable and beneficial
- Manually submit web page details
- Choose the most appropriate category
- Await confirmation or rejection emails
Are Directories Still Viable In A Link Building Campaign?
The biggest concern that our customers and many webmasters have is the question of whether directories and, more specifically directory submissions remain viable. The short answer is yes, it is still a viable SEO tactic but more accurate answer is that it is a viable tactic as long as you do it properly and you do it well.
Comply With The Penguin
In order to ensure that you still enjoy beneficial SEO gains from your directory submissions you should comply with the following guidelines:
SEO Friendly Directories
An SEO friendly directory is one that offers dofollow links and is indexed and cached in the Google index. This is a relatively quick check for a single directory but it can become considerably more time consuming and even tedious if you have to check hundreds or thousands of directories before submitting.
Diverse Anchor Text
The Penguin update has targeted those websites that rely on a single anchor text keyword or phrase. If the majority of your links use one specific keyword then Google will believe it to be unnatural and they may impose a penalty. At the very least you will not gain the benefit you would with a diverse link profile.
Manual Submission Process
Automated software leads to mistakes and is generally frowned upon by quality directory owners as well as the search engines. You may find yourself labelled as a spammer and you may also see your results plummet. Only use manual submission tactics.
Varied Link Targets
Another way to ensure your link profile offers diversity is to vary the pages that you link to, as well as the anchor text you use in each of your links. There are probably hundreds of viable keywords for each of your pages so utilise more than one choice in order to develop improved results and a \\more natural profile.
No Reciprocal Links
The days of reciprocal linking are long gone. Search engines do not trust reciprocal links as being an indication of quality any longer and this means that you will not gain the kind of benefit that you require from your directory submissions if you use those sites that require a return link.
How We Changed our techniques
As search engines change their emphasis and impose new penalties, we too change our techniques in order to ensure that we continue to offer the best quality service with the greatest possible results. We have always ensured that the directories we use are good quality and we have always used manual submissions but, like Google, we have become considerably more stringent in the directory submission and link building process.
Every directory we submit to is first checked for its viability. We ensure it is indexed and cached by Google because this helps ensure that any link provided by it will offer at least some value to a search engine optimisation campaign. We have updated our directory list in light of these changes so that we continue to offer submissions that perform.
We have made our submission process even more natural looking. We continue to submit manually but we have slowed submissions right down so that our client websites will not suffer penalties at the hands of the Penguin update and Google algorithms.
Working Together For SEO Gains
While we do everything we can to ensure that your submissions offer you the greatest value there are certain aspects that you will need to manage in order to ensure the best results:
- Optimise landing pages without keyword stuffing them
- Use a variety of link anchor texts within your submission order
- Use other link development techniques
By working together with our clients, we can help to create powerful, popular, and profitable websites using a variety of link building techniques including directory submissions even after the highly debated Penguin update.
