The Link Directory: Just Another Form of Link Farm? - More Directory Tips
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5. You can’t be all things to everyone. Don’t try to include a broad spectrum of categories in your directory. It is one thing for a directory like DMOZ’s Open Directory to have categories ranging from kids toys to barbecue supplies to furnace repair companies, because they’ve built their reputation as an all-encompassing type of directory: that’s all they are. If you have a website about the care of kittens, you can’t be DMOZ and try to keep your site relevant to kittens.
6. Clean out your link directory on occasion. Even if you’ve already approved a link exchange with a website in the past, it never hurts to follow up on these links. Many times, you’ll find that a site seems to be a good choice for a link exchange, only to find out in a few months that the site is no longer found in the search engines because they’ve been banned due to black-hat SEO practices. The site might have gone under, or moved, so it’s a good idea for you to remove these dead links as well.
As search engines implement more filters, there is greater risk that even links from legitimate directories are being filtered out, or not being credited to your backlink score. Many directories are link farms and additionally some search engines may even be filtering out some of the links from some of the legitimate directories, because those links appear random, and there is no way for a search engine to tell the difference between this new form of link farm and the old. There is no substitute for relevant, quality one-way links from well reputed sites.
Do I think the link farm has been replaced by the link directory? Yes and no. There are many great directories out there. The Open Directory, or DMOZ, is a good example of a directory that carries fairly heavy weight in the search engines. Google, especially, pulls a lot of information from the Open Directory. But even a link from this directory doesn’t carry as much weight as it used to.
Most search engines, which include Google, Yahoo, and MSN, use backlinks to calculate a website’s relevance. It makes complete sense that if links are that important, that you should be cautious about which sites you link to and which sites you choose to have linking to you. The link farm may look obsolete, but in many respects it has only changed its façade. The link directories are not bad things in all respects, but I think they are being more closely watched to make sure they don’t present opportunities for spam. All it takes is a few bad apples, and the search engines will throw out the whole bunch: yours included. Keep your links relevant, and be picky about who you link to, and your link directory may just hold some value; if not for search engines, then to bring qualified traffic to your website.
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