What is the value of a link directory?
In case you hadn’t heard about the low value that many people place on business directories, let me enumerate some of the more common arguments against them. And then I would like to proceed with how good old internet directories are actually still very much alive and well.
Argument 1: All the directories that I see on the internet are exactly the same, they’re all created with the same script, and they all have the same category and URL structure. The only difference is the URL of the directory itself.
Argument 2: Directories are so useless because they are essentially link farms where seo spammers from India or Pakistan spend hours and hours just submitting crap links to these places, and they provide no real value to anyone.
Counter Argument 1: Although there are plenty of directories that are essentially duplicates of each other besides the URL, all of those directories have their own unique story to tell. For instance, let’s say 10 of the directories that you encounter out on the web are hosted on the same IP and have the exact same category and URL structure. But what if one of those directories gets sold to someone who is going to take the time to build it up and do some seo on it and promote it? If your link were to be found in that directory, you would benefit very much from that promotion.
Counter Argument 2: So let’s just go along with the fact that there is a human behind each directory on the net. These humans are really out to just make a buck. So while they are in the process of building up and promoting their directories, they provide free links in these directories, because of the newness and relative uselessness of the site. But again, if you just wait a year or so, many of the directories that you submit to today will be highly valuable. Others of course will fall by the way side and will never be heard from again. But that’s a calculated risk that you need to be willing to take.
Now some people might argue that if you submit your site to too many directories at once, Google will penalize your site. The reason people have this fear is because getting too many links from the same type of place looks rather suspicious to Google’s algorithm, and it isn’t ‘normal’ for most new sites to get a huge influx of directory links unless they are spammy sites. But the fact remains that if you submit your site to 1000 directories in 1 day, the majority of those sites a) won’t accept your links and b) won’t publish your link for probably a few months. So it’s actually pretty safe to submit your site to a lot of directories right away, just because your link won’t go live on very many of the sites to begin with.
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Never knew such a thing about a link hihihih…thanks by the way