Directory submission refers to the practice of adding your site to a web directory. It involves providing your URL and other details to the category that best matches your website.
But does directory submission still work? Is it worth all the trouble? These questions are often asked in search engine optimization (SEO) and Internet marketing forums. The usual answer is that directory submissions are simply a waste of time and money. Others argue that they’re still effective. But the truth is that there’s no definitive answer. Directory submission may or may not work. Here’s the real deal.
What does NOT work
Before, directories used to be the easiest and fastest way to climb up the search engine results pages. People thought that the more links to your site, the greater the chances that both humans and search engine crawlers will stumble upon it. In fact, so many low-quality web directories sprung all over the place with the intention to twist search results through their page rank and anchor text manipulation. People started setting up cheap web directories for the purpose of increasing websites’ rankings through illegitimate link-building methods.
In 2007, many paid link directories had an unexpected drop in rank. Google clearly began to target such directories because they violated many quality guidelines. Of course, Google’s course of action was focused on the abuse and not on the practice of directory submission itself.
If you want directory submission to work for you, then you should keep an eye out for low-quality general web directories that possess the following characteristics:
- Not indexed - The main page and some of the category pages of the web directory might be indexed in Google. But make sure that you check even the interior category pages. Simply paste the URL into the search bar. If Google comes up with that page’s title and a bit of content, then it means that page is indexed. Otherwise, it won’t provide your site link juice – or benefits from links pointing to your site.
- No substance – While the directory may have many categories, there are only a few listings contained within each one.
- No traffic – Not many people utilize that web directory. Because it generates very little traffic, having your link posted on that directory will do you no good.
- Low PageRank – People don’t have the patience to go over the other search results pages. They usually click on the links that fall within the top part of page one. In other words, if your chosen directory doesn’t rank well, then people won’t find your site as easily. In addition, when a low-ranking site links to you, search engine bots won’t bother to give you a favorable rating.
What works
You should conduct due diligence so you’d be sure that your website is getting some value when you list it in a web directory, especially if you’re getting charged for it. Here are the things that you should look for in a web directory.
- Indexed category pages – If the category page that you wish to be included in is not indexed by search engines, then it won’t add any value to your site and hence fail to contribute to its popularity. Because search engines don’t know about that specific category page, then they won’t be able to recognize that that page is linking to you.
- High volume of traffic – This is partly related to the first consideration. If the category pages are indexed and have a high ranking in search results, then it means that many people are using the directory. You can expect that the web directory will send you significant traffic. This is particularly true for niche directories, which people really use to look for companies in a specific field.
- Not using the NOFOLLOW attribute - When the attribute rel=”nofollow” is used in a link, it tells the crawlers to follow the link but not to associate that particular page with the destination page. If you’re submitting to a directory with the purpose of improving your site’s popularity, then you should determine whether that directory adds the NOFOLLOW attribute to their links. There are modules that you can download to check whether the links on a web page are nofollowed.
What should you do?
Mass submitting to general web directories will add little to no value to your search engine optimization campaign. However, there are still quality directories out there that can send positive signals to Google and other search engines. Look for directories wherein submissions are subject to strict human review, that don’t sell links for page rank alone, and that are run by its owners with passion.