Quote:
Originally Posted by bobmutch
I think the test works better when you are testing with a keyword that your site doesn't have topical authority for.
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That makes no sense at all to me. I want my site to be listed on pages that have topical authority for my subject/niche.
If a directory category page actually ranked for keyphrases related to the subject (as many one page niche "directories" do), I think it's a clear sign that the page is viewed favorably by the search engines. I'm pretty sure this is the point Rand was trying to make even though he picked a poor manner to express the point IMO.
DMOZ used to rank very well for keyphrases in my niche. Now, not so much. I don't think it's authority or usefulness to Google has diminished though. I think the ranking algos are now favoring pages that have IBLs from other sites in the subject/niche and more folks aren't linking to the DMOZ category pages as much these days as they are to the niche page directories that I see.
The conclusion I reach is that
PR is not near as important as IBLs from topical authorities or topically related pages.
General directories are going to lose this battle (versus niche sites) every time IMO. That doesn't mean that general directories are worthless, however. Just that the measure of quality isn't going to be found in a Google SERP IMO. You have to look at the category pages of the general directories and see how focused they are on topic, quality and completeness. The directories with better categorization are going to be more useful for the search engines to use as a base for topical relevance.
The conundrum for paid, general directories is that they want webmasters to pay for listings, so they generally don't have enough listings to really be a good reference on most subjects.
The conundrum for free, general directories is that they just don't scale well with the growth of the internet.