Rand Fishkin vs Aviva

[John Scott]

Originally Posted by seomoz

Does the directory itself (the home page) rank for any of the moderately competitive terms in it's title, e.g. for Aviva Directory, whose title tag is "Information - Aviva Web Directory," I searched Google for information web directory and didn't find them in the first 500 results.

Where the hell does he pull this criteria from? What basis does he have for stating this? Since when did a page ranking for the words in it's page titles mean something?

There are hundreds of thousands of pages out there, clean as a virgin honeypot, and enjoying some solid linkage, that do not necessarily rank for some words that are in the page titles.

Pretty sure somebody just pulled that criteria out of their ass.

Also note that the page title of the page in question is "Information - Aviva Web Directory", but to prove a non-point, the author searched Google for "information web directory", a phrase that is nothing similar to the page title.

And apply Rand's own criteria to the SEOMoz blog and it will show that the SEOmoz blog is not, um, worthwhile? A little confused here because I'm not sure what the aforementioned, pulled-from-the-ass criteria is supposed to show. But whatever it is supposed to show, it shows the SEOmoz blog in the negative.

"Search Engine Marketing News & Tips" is in the SEOmoz blog page title, but when I search for "news" they aren't in the top ten. Nor when I search for "tips" or when I search for "&", or even "Search Engine Marketing News".

Originally Posted by seomoz

Do the pages inside the directory rank well for their targeted phrases, e.g. I might check the financial forums page at Aviva by searching for financial forums information directory at Google - again, not in the top 500 results (even though the page is recently indexed). If I dont' find general pages, I'll search for more specific ones, like their page on ScaleModel.net with a search for international list of scale model related web sites (unbelievably not in the top 300)

Who said that Aviva Directory was targeting the phrase "financial forums information directory"??? Where the hell is this guy getting this crap? I mean, you want to piss on somebody else's work, fine, but do so honestly. Don't go making up keyword phrases and saying that Aviva is targeting them.

Originally Posted by seomoz

Check the links to the directory - do they appear legitimate and valuable, e.g. For Aviva - 907,819 to the domain, 683,573 to the homepage. They're at close to a million links, but can't rank for even 5-6 word phrases in their title tags... Something's funny.

Can't even rank for the 5-6 word phrases in their title tags? They do rank for most of the searches I checked, but then I didn't alter the title tags. Somewhat dishonest article if you ask me, and by "somewhat" I mean "very".

Aviva has been on Digg's home page more than once, and the organic linkage it enjoys is nothing short of awesome.

Originally Posted by seomoz

Check the page strength - do they have links from edu and gov domains? Are they listed in places like dmoz or Wikipedia? Do blogs regularly link to them (Technorati numbers)? What's their PageRank? etc. For Aviva, they're a PS 7 (although the Technorati numbers aren't coming through right now).

Why should anybody check page strength? Does Google use page strength? No. Does Google give extra credit for .edu links? No. for .gov links? No. Do most professional SEO's know that most edu and gov links are actually on spam pages? I would hope so.

Originally Posted by seomoz

Check out mentions of the domain on the web - do they come from legitimate sources? Is it mostly SEO-related websites that are talking about them? If so, the engines might have less trust in them than in other types of sites, e.g. for Aviva, searching google for avivadirectory.com -site:avivadirectory.com.

Again, "the engines might have less trust in them than in other types of sites"????? Any sources to back up this assumption?

Do these directories have value? I will have to go with a response that is 180 degrees from Rand Fishkin: YES.

http://www.v7n.com/forums/web-direct...ories-win.html

I regularly experiment with new sites and web directory submission, and I can say, YES, web directories with editorial integrity like Aviva do help you in the SERPs.

And I would suggest that you evaluate web directories with a much more useful criteria - one, that they rewrite titles and descriptions, and reject unworthy submissions.

And two, that they have high quality sites in their index that serve the public.

[maldives]

Excellent response John! It is funny these guys create their own procedure and decide the fate of big directories based on their lame criterias.

SEOMOZ is of course a big joke. I find it funny they come up with issues like this while they are unable to provide accurate infromation via their page stregth tool.

[Bernard]

related thread

I haven't read the page you are quoting from John, and those examples Rand is using are pathetic, but the point (I think) he is trying to make is valid - are the category pages being seen by the SE's as valuable (or hubs)?

For me, this is what separates the paid directories (what's the value added) from the free directories (where a link is a link).

[John Scott]

The point is a valid one, that there are a bunch of crap directories out there. But the criteria he uses are a worthless, and the example he uses is wrong. And the way he seems to implement his criteria is also dishonest. He butchers a title tag and then says that because they don't rank for the title tag that he butchered, they are then crap? Whoa there, way dishonest.

[sizzler_chetan]

John i have got enough points to prove seomoz sucks and tries to make their own site famous with public money and loot everyone by changing 5digit $ for reviewing sites and decieving quality directories.
But iam not posting because i dont have him to give my and my brother's dir a bad name. you know he can blackmail me too

[smub]

http://www.idk.in/blogs/?p=55

lol John i think u were a bit late lol.... i got angry when i read his post and targetting aviva.... i wrote a response myself...


:p

[David E]

SEOmoz know about as much about directories as I know about link baiting, the list that they have provided of recommended ones does include V7N and a couple of other good ones, but most of them are ones for organizations or sites offering free stuff, all of which they seemed to be listed in (for some reason), one that they had on there was About.com, I couldn't even see a directory on there it just looked like an article site, others were just for very niche sites, basically they picked out a list of directories that it is impossible for a site like myne to get listed in, some of the ones they recommended were actually in databases and 100% non spiderable i.e. it would be impossible for a search engine to pick the links up, others were using re-directs, that made me laugh.

[jhnrang]

To me this is what matters--


Not to forget 30500 high quality and informative websites that visitors can find at Aviva.

I am really amazed at Rand Fishkin --his understanding of web directories or rather his lack of knowledge on them. The above screenshot is proof enough how Google views Aviva Directory -a leader and an authority in its Niche.

Mr. Rand is just making himself a laughing stock among serious web community

Since when are directories supposed to rank?
I always understand --directories are there to provide quality information to browsers and help webmasters rank their websites.

It is true - a single directory is not enough to rank a website --but some quality directories like Aviva and all those on my list are enough to rank any site
http://www.bestinternetresource.info...b-directories/

Most of the time I have to Google --as I am adding --quality informative sites to my directory for better user service.

I hardly see SEOMOZ rank for any term except theor own site title. How can some-one fool-around and charge $$$$$ from clients when he can't rank his own site

[David E]

Originally Posted by jhnrang

I hardly see SEOMOZ rank for any term except theor own site title. How can some-one fool-around and charge $$$$$ from clients when he can't rank his own site

SEOmoz do rank for some awesome phrases like web 2.0.

[jhnrang]

Originally Posted by David E

SEOmoz do rank for some awesome phrases like web 2.0.

Dave -- yes it ranks #9 on my DC. Just checked the word with overture --and there is not a single searcher for the word/phrase -web 2.0 -- However people do search for phrases like web 2.0 conference (6380), 2.0 cam fake web (3197), 2.0 disaster response web (294 --SEOMOZ is not found anywhere near credible rank for those phrases.

[David E]

Originally Posted by jhnrang

Dave -- yes it ranks #9 on my DC. Just checked the word with overture --and there is not a single searcher for the word/phrase -web 2.0 -- However people do search for phrases like web 2.0 conference (6380), 2.0 cam fake web (3197), 2.0 disaster response web (294 --SEOMOZ is not found anywhere near credible rank for those phrases.

2nd for SEO blog, and there blog posts generally rank well high.

[jhnrang]

Originally Posted by David E

2nd for SEO blog, and there blog posts generally rank well high.

OK-- that word is good --overture says - 770 searchers for seo blog

And about blog-posts --if some-one has unique contents/title -they should rank good -isn't You posts/my posts --and anybody's post- if they are quality should rank high.

Lemme just reveal --a secret. I have a blog on my country. Due to shortage of time - I can't post there. So I source news articles from a renowned Newspaper.

Surprise-surprise --when I type the post title or some keywords on those posts-- after 48 hrs --most of the time I rank ahead of that PR7 newspaper site.

[Cornbread]

Here is a very impressive EDU site that Aviva is on.

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~dwils...s/general.html

I don't know how they got that link but it's impressive because I know the guy that runs that site (Dave Wilson) and he is very picky about who he gives a link to.

[bestoptimized]

Originally Posted by jhnrang

Dave -- yes it ranks #9 on my DC. Just checked the word with overture --and there is not a single searcher for the word/phrase -web 2.0 -- However people do search for phrases like web 2.0 conference (6380), 2.0 cam fake web (3197), 2.0 disaster response web (294 --SEOMOZ is not found anywhere near credible rank for those phrases.

Overture is dead wrong. There are thousands of people searching for "web 2.0"
everyday - I even searched that term when I first heard of it several years ago.
Web 2.0 is very big that is why the Web 2.0 Awards did so good.
The terms you mention (2.0 disaster response web) and (2.0 cam fake web) probably would not send very much (maybe none!) traffic even if you were number 1. Much of the data on overture is not accurate and it can also be manipulated.

I like the Seomoz blog and I read all their posts as well as reading the posts of a couple dozen other seo blogs. I do not agree with everything I read on there (or anyplace else for that matter) but most of what they say is accurate. I don't know why everyone here is so negative about their blog.

I do agree that their criteria (Rand Fishkin's) on directories is wrong because it is obvious the Aviva Directory is very good quality.

[John Scott]

Overture is dead wrong.

No, they are only Overture numbers, though.

If you check Google, you'll see that "web 2.0" is a medium volume search term. It's a somewhat specialized term that the average person would not have interest in.

[bestoptimized]

I agree it is a median term but it does receive good traffic probably peaking at times when there is an article in the news about web 2.0.
I was just pointing out that jhnrang was wrong about the overture numbers.
I almost never use overture anymore because it is out of date (I am pretty sure I read that the data is now over 6 months old but I might be wrong) and it is not accurate.