Right Way to Choose Web Directories

[abisana]

I wanted to submit my websites to few web directories that claims themselves worthy for a submission but after submitting my sites in those web directories, I lost the good PR my site was holding.

How can I identify the right type of directory where I can submit my sites?

[Dan]

My personal opinion is that submitting to directories won't affect your PR at all. It won't raise it; it won't reduce it. Is PR the measure you use to value the importance of your website?

When identifying the type of directory you should be submitting to we need to understand what you place importance/value upon.

Some people would you rather submit to a directory with high PR. That's what they place the value on.

Others would like to be listed alongside good company. i.e. websites that they are happy to be associated with.

Being listed quickly may be of importance to you.

Is it one, or more, of these or something completely different?

[tsdev]

Choose a directory which is relevant to the content of your website. Also be vigilant and dont pick directories which look like their main purpose is for money generation, as those are typically known by google and are already blacklisted.

[Dir-complete]

Target the higher PR directories. You'll soon get your PR back, just don't spam and make Google think you're link spamming/posting crap (as it were).

[abisana]

Originally Posted by Dan

My personal opinion is that submitting to directories won't affect your PR at all. It won't raise it; it won't reduce it. Is PR the measure you use to value the importance of your website?

When identifying the type of directory you should be submitting to we need to understand what you place importance/value upon.

Some people would you rather submit to a directory with high PR. That's what they place the value on.

Others would like to be listed alongside good company. i.e. websites that they are happy to be associated with.

Being listed quickly may be of importance to you.

Is it one, or more, of these or something completely different?

I never knew about the value mentioned here. This will be of great use to me in future. I always thought getting PR is the only way to get in the online market. And it is true that I was giving more importance in being listed quickly.

Thank you for these suggestions.

[TYoungPhoto]

This is a topic I'm really confused about and I'm finding it tough to get real, backed up data.

My strategy for the last couple of weeks has been to use SEOmoz or Alexa to view my competitors backlinks. In Alexa's case it only shows 100 of them.

I then try and list my site on everything that is listed for their sites.

Most of these are directories. Some of which do not have high PR. But some of my competitors have a PR of 4 and come up for absolutely every keyword in my industry and local area. I completely realize SEO is not just about backlinks and that content plays a major roll, as well as page titles and all the rest.

But, if listing my site on a PR 1 or 2 directory is bad, how the heck did my competitors get to the top when they are listed on so many of these? Literally, 3/4 of all backlinks are directories in that range.

Help!

[JohnnyS]

you need to be careful in choosing your directories. Try this. Directories with pr 1 to 4 then choose those site which is related to your website.

[FaisalReza]

before submitting your website to directories, see the PR first. I use seo-quake to inspect the PR before submit

[Dan]

Originally Posted by FaisalReza

before submitting your website to directories, see the PR first. I use seo-quake to inspect the PR before submit

How does the PR help identify which directories are correct for the Original Poster?

What is the importance of PR when considering directories?

But, if listing my site on a PR 1 or 2 directory is bad, how the heck did my competitors get to the top when they are listed on so many of these? Literally, 3/4 of all backlinks are directories in that range.

That's your problem. You are focusing on PR. Why? What makes you think it has any significance at all to the results you are seeing?

Consider that, the situation you are referring to (a listing on a PR1/PR2 page) would be highly diluted --- ignoring the fact that that actual PR we are talking about is different again. I ask again, why would you focus on PR at all?

Forget PR, whilst you pull your hair out chasing a silly little number, your competitors are engaging in a range of techniques including link-building, advertising/marketing, social interactivity, SEO (on and off page) and pulling away from you.

At the end of the day why do you want PR? If Google gave you PR6 on its next update and you didn't move 1 place in the rankings, would you feel satisfied?

[admans]

I think submitting to well listed and good PR web directory as long as they are not blacklisted will help you in a long run. I personally believe that PR should not be your only indicator how good your site is doing.

[TYoungPhoto]

Originally Posted by Dan

Forget PR, whilst you pull your hair out chasing a silly little number, your competitors are engaging in a range of techniques including link-building, advertising/marketing, social interactivity, SEO (on and off page) and pulling away from you.

At the end of the day why do you want PR? If Google gave you PR6 on its next update and you didn't move 1 place in the rankings, would you feel satisfied?

Sorry, I must of worded my post incorrectly. I am not chasing PR. I am simply touting the benefits of directories and stating what is true for my competitors. They have at least 3/4 of their backlinks coming in from PR 1 and 2 directories and are doing quite well.

They are not, however pulling away from me, I just moved to the area, and it is I who am catching up with them.

But yes, if I did achieve a PR of 6 and didn't move in the rankings I'd be pissed. HAHA!

[nonar]

The age of the directory.
The ranking on the search engines.
The backlinks for the directory
The PR
And what is the directory content ! Is't good information to the users.

[admans]

Also check the IP. Now a days many directories are established on same IP which is seen by Google as link farms (it might hurt your rankings even if the directory has high PR IMHO).

Originally Posted by nonar

The age of the directory.
The ranking on the search engines.
The backlinks for the directory
The PR
And what is the directory content ! Is't good information to the users.

[sam789]

Originally Posted by nonar

The age of the directory.
The ranking on the search engines.
The backlinks for the directory
The PR
And what is the directory content ! Is't good information to the users.

@nonar mentioned few really good points you guys can try Mozilla "WebRank Toolbar " and "SEO Stats - Backlinks, indexed pages, pagerank toolbar" for that

[addlinkweb]

choose that directory which have a good page rank (atleast more than 2 or 3) and add link in relevant category and sub category

[Belinda]

Originally Posted by TYoungPhoto

Sorry, I must of worded my post incorrectly. I am not chasing PR. I am simply touting the benefits of directories and stating what is true for my competitors. They have at least 3/4 of their backlinks coming in from PR 1 and 2 directories and are doing quite well.

They are not, however pulling away from me, I just moved to the area, and it is I who am catching up with them.

But yes, if I did achieve a PR of 6 and didn't move in the rankings I'd be pissed. HAHA!

Your competitors have a solid backlink base. The PR of those backlinks is trivial. Keep building your backlink base and employ the techniques Dan has said and you should overtake your competitors easily.

[boblord666]

Just back to "the best way to choose a web directory". Is a directory having sitelinks in a Google search a pretty good indication of exactly how the big G rates a directory? My feeling is that it would be.

For instance, if you search for a directory by name such as joeant, searchbuster, dirbull and others, Google will display the results with site links. I'm thinking that if all the brainpower of Google with it's testing regime has decided that these directories are the worthy ones.

[michaelj72]

i don't get this part of the OP's initial remark, "but after submitting my sites in those web directories, I lost the good PR my site was holding." that makes no sense to me and wonder why.

i might mention some of the sites/tools and ideas that i use to find decent directories to submit to


i go here to Check Page Rank to check on: page rank, alexa rank, whether the site is listed in dmoz or yahoo directories (a real plus for Trust and Authority), the domain age (older tends to mean more trusted by google), and you can also see the domain history through a link that takes you to the wayback archive:
checkpagerank.net

i go here to Majestic and use the historical index checker to see total referring domains, how many edu and gov referring backlinks and domains, referring IP addresses, Class C subnets and then the top pages and how many external backlinks and referring domains those top pages have
majesticseo.com

i will often do a search for: www web directory which lets you find out which web directories google thinks are the most powerful, based on citation and all the other factors.....you can also search using the www keyword if you are looking for say travel or business directories to submit to, so search: www travel directory and you get your travel directories ranked by google for you and hence you can see which are among the most powerful directories that way - those would be good ones to submit to to help your backlink profile.


go to the paid directories list at web-directories.ws and Brent has it worked out where you can check many many directories, and some of those he's reviewed are not recommended and he tells why, i use the list to look for older directories to submit to
(those that have been active from say 1998-early 2007 - so more than 5 years old - if they've been around 5 years they'll likely be around a good while more and google also will have indexed and cached their page and after 3-5 years those directories have earned some trust and authority too)

and yes page rank still is important - one reason why is google uses it as their main guide for how often/frequently and deeply to index and cache a website - so a large website with a pr 5 will tend to be much more deeply indexed (and many more of its pages held in the main index) than a similar sized website of say pr 1 or pr 2.... go see Cutts on that one if you don't believe it.

just a few quick ideas and tips

[boblord666]

Originally Posted by michaelj72

i go here to Majestic and use the historical index checker to see total referring domains, how many edu and gov referring backlinks and domains, referring IP addresses, Class C subnets and then the top pages and how many external backlinks and referring domains those top pages have
majesticseo.com

just a few quick ideas and tips

That's good, but just wondering what edu and gov sites would give a genuine backlink to a general directory. Any examples?

[michaelj72]

Originally Posted by boblord666

That's good, but just wondering what edu and gov sites would give a genuine backlink to a general directory. Any examples?

yeah well i don't really investigate which edu and gov sites give these backlinks (don't know how to do that or what kind of tool would be needed to track that info down) - you can double check because as a matter of fact, many of the directories that I look at which are active from 2006 or before ofter have at least a few edu backlinks (i suspect it was easier to acquire/buy them back then too).

here's a specific example, ezilon.com which has been around since 2002 and has 103 edu and 11 gov domains - i'd consider it a rather quality directory, and pricey too, with a very solid backlink profile as well...