Annual renewal fee directories SUCK

[css25]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I mean, was it removed because it did not add value to your directory? If so why the hell did you approve the listing in the first place?

I like this part, because it happened to my web directory when Google "cut-off" my PR due to 98% downtime sometimes ago and "this/that" web directory removed my web directory w/o notice even I paid for listing in their directory.

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

blah blah blah.

It isn't about Matt Cutts.

It isn't about advertising principles.

It isn't about the ethics of Paris Hilton going panty-less.

It's simple math.

$49.95 multiplied by one equals $49.95

$49.95 multiplied by <number of years you intend to run the website> equals more than that.

Why pay more when you can pay less? When you go to MacDonald's and order a MacLard burger, do they charge you a monthly fee?

[solidghost]

Wait, Paris Hilton went pantyless???
When did that happen?

[sitetutor]

Originally Posted by John Scott

It isn't about Matt Cutts.

It isn't about advertising principles.

It isn't about the ethics of Paris Hilton going panty-less.

It's simple math.

$49.95 multiplied by one equals $49.95

$49.95 multiplied by <number of years you intend to run the website> equals more than that.

Why pay more when you can pay less? When you go to MacDonald's and order a MacLard burger, do they charge you a monthly fee?

If a listing benefits you for many years to come as so many do, why not continue charging? Do SEO companies charge only once or do they have a contract that bills the client on a monthly basis?

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

If a listing benefits you for many years to come as so many do, why not continue charging?

What do you mean, "continue charging"? Do webmasters charge directory owners?

Originally Posted by sitetutor

Do SEO companies charge only once or do they have a contract that bills the client on a monthly basis?

SEO companies do a lot of different things - most are one-off.

[sitetutor]

bullshit, if you wanna sell our to matt that is your business, but dont tell others to do the same!

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

bullshit, if you wanna sell our to matt that is your business, but dont tell others to do the same!

How is my wanting to pay once instead of paying ten times "selling out"? You really suck at math, don't you?

Here:

49.95 x 1 =- 49.95

49.95 x 10 = 499.50

But then, you've never paid to submit, have you? So what the hell are you doing posting in this thread?

[Cornbread]

Here is the bottom line: buying permanent links from quality, spam free directories like V7n gives you an adavantage over your competitors. It takes money to make money, getting those quality links early in a websites life cycle can pay huge dividends down the road.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by John Scott

I submit to a lot of directories, from Yahoo! and Umdum to DMOZ and rlrouse.

I don't submit to BOTW, and haven't for a while now, because of the annual listing charge.

But now it seems a lot of web directory owners are going the annual listing route. I have held off saying this for a while now, because I consider most of these web directory owners friends. But it needs to be said:

Yearly renewal fees are beyond stupid. The spirit of annual renewal fees - well, it feels like greed to me.

And the "review fee" is bogus, a lie. If a website is listed in your directory, you should be reviewing it on a monthly basis anyway.

Now, let's do the math. Say a directory charges $69.95 per year. That's $349.75 for five years, and $699.50 for 10 years.

Now, for arguments sake, compare that to Umdum's $40.00 one time fee. I can say without a shred of doubt that Umdum sends me more traffic and more link juice than 90% of annual-renewal directories out there, and at a discount of $659.50 over 10 years.

But more than that, it is a matter of principle for me. If I pay for a review, it should be a review. If it's accepted, it's accepted. But with these BOTW type directories, these clowns actually remove your link if you don't pay the fee.

Even Yahoo! doesn't remove links, but these people do, making it obvious that they are not in the directory business, but in the link-leasing business.

Why remove the listing if you aren't in it for the money. I have two full time and one part time editor ADDING sites, searching for and adding sites on the basis of heir merits. So the idea of removing a site just seems absurd.

I mean, was it removed because it did not add value to your directory? If so why the hell did you approve the listing in the first place?

I was referred to this thread by a friend.

I agree entirely with your points here, John.

But there's also another excellent reason to shun annual fee directories. Apart from the ethical issue of the "money grab", this policy takes a directory and throws it solidly into the "paid link" category.

Anyone who has been following the latest comments in Google's stepped-up war on paid links knows that charging a review fee for inclusion in a directory is acceptable to Google. That's a one-time fee. Charging a fee every year is what? It's called "renting PageRank" people. And that is exactly what Google aims to nullify.

[John Scott]

Long time no see, Minstrel

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by John Scott

How is my wanting to pay once instead of paying ten times "selling out"? You really suck at math, don't you?

Here:

49.95 x 1 =- 49.95

49.95 x 10 = 499.50

But then, you've never paid to submit, have you? So what the hell are you doing posting in this thread?

I don't think there's any mystery to that. Sitetutor aka Blobmaster makes his living scamming the naive and the ill-informed and he's afraid his income, such as it is, will suffer if the word gets out. It's really that simple.

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

I don't get it, not at all. You can have a business directory offline (Yellow Pages, your local shopping directory, computer store magazines and what have you) and you pay a fee for a certain period time to get in. You can do the same thing online and if it pays off, then of course you will keep on paying.

Yes. They call that "advertising". Nothing wrong with that.

Originally Posted by sitetutor

So what this comes down to is what you brand yourself with.

"Brand"? Is this a new word you just learned? Do you have any idea what it means? What the hell has that got to do with annual fees for directories?

Originally Posted by sitetutor

You can have a free directory selling adsense, a free and paid directory or an all paid directory, and if it isn't worth the inclusion fee, just don't submit.

Straight from the University of the Bleeding Obvious.

Originally Posted by sitetutor

If you look at directories as powerpoints to help you rank only then yes, everyone wants a lifetime listings, and the current bid directories seem to do well promising permanent listings, even if you only submit a dollar, $5.00 or what have you.

If you think these bidding directories, like the one you're currently flogging in your signature, aren't immediately flagged as paid links by Google, you're just not paying attention. Gotta love those threads at DP - the same people who complained about Cutts asking for informants are now making it easy for Google to identify those paid links, all in two or three convenient (and public) threads.

[quote=sitetutor;614769]But just because Matt says "It's ok for you guys to have a review fee", should that change everybody's submission and payment policy? You can do what you want with your directory.

Of course. That's already been acknowledged:

How to report paid links: Update, May 12th, 2007

Q: Hey, as long as we’re talking about directories, can you talk about the role of directories, some of whom charge for a reviewer to evaluate them?
A: I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:
- Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.
- What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.
- If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.

Q: This is all well and fine, but I decide what to do on my site. I can do anything I want on it, including selling links.
A: You’re 100% right; you can do absolutely anything you want on your site. But in the same way, I believe Google has the right to do whatever we think is best (in our index, algorithms, or scoring) to return relevant results.

Originally Posted by sitetutor

Of course if you call the fee a review fee and charge every year, then that is pretty questionable. Most directories provide very little traffic, even the high PR ones. If people submit anyways and pay every year, then let them and if Google ices them, then that's their fault.

Define a scammer: One who k nows what he sells is worthless but sells it to the naive and uninformed anyway to make a quick buck.

Originally Posted by sitetutor

The problem is that very few directories have strong branding.

That word again. :rolletes: It has nothing to do with branding.

Originally Posted by sitetutor

for the life of me I cannot see why a line or two from Matt should suddenly make every directory owner change their listing fees into review fees with free listings and stop selling listings at advertising, just because Google might look at it as a link farm. There are many link farms out there, but you would then have to also blast business.com and some of the most reputable directories which actually do provide people with direct traffic.

You don't seem to have the vaguest idea about any of this. One moment you're claiming it's about branding, the next it's about advertising, the next it's about not complying with guidelines given to you by Matt Cutts, the next it's not about traffic, the next it's about traffic... I don't think you understand any of it.

Want to sell advertising? Go ahead. The links won't pass PR. Google is fine with that.

Want to sell advertising using a Yellow Pages annual fee model? Google is fine with that, too. No effect on PR.

Want to try to actually sell links for PR? Cutts even tells you how to do that safely. But apparently the terminally confused in the crowd can't even follow and accept those simple instructions because you may lose a buck or two on your dollar store bidding directories.

All of this is painful proof once again that P.T. Barnum was correct.

[Cornbread]

Has anyone heard about Aviva becoming a "trusted/authority" directory. At a different SEO forum they are making a huge issue out of this. They claim that when you type in Aviva Dirctory in Google, the top result has a dash in front of it and that means it is considered an "authority" by Google. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

[minstrel]

Originally Posted by Cornbread

Has anyone heard about Aviva becoming a "trusted/authority" directory. At a different SEO forum they are making a huge issue out of this. They claim that when you type in Aviva Dirctory in Google, the top result has a dash in front of it and that means it is considered an "authority" by Google. Can anyone confirm or deny this?

I can confirm that there is a dash there.

I don't think it means anything. DMOZ doesn't get a dash.

[Cornbread]

Originally Posted by minstrel

I can confirm that there is a dash there.

I don't think it means anything. DMOZ doesn't get a dash.

Thanks Minstrel, I think it was digital points forum or something like that. They were just waving all kinds of flags about that claiming that it was a HUGE deal that Aviva got this dash in front of it. I questioned it and they got mad and banned me. I am by no means an expert here on SEO but they seemed to think I was stupid for not knowing that the dash in front means that the web site is considered an authority. hmmm.....that dash does has me wondering. Yahoo Directory doesn't get a dash either?