There has been some discussion lately about setting up a Directory Association. This would be an organization for directory owners similar to a Bar Association for attorneys – although on a much smaller scale.
Wait, wasn’t this discussed before? Yes it was – two years ago. In fact, one such association was indeed set up – [...]
It has been a bit over a month since our last post on the ranking of directories using the Trifecta tool by SEOMoz. Here are the updated results, sorted by score (price in brackets):
50 – 100
94 Dmoz.org (free)
88 Dir.Yahoo.com ($299 per year)
82 Business.com ($299 per year)
59 Bubl.ac.uk (free)
52 Botw.org ($99.95 per year or $249.95)
40 – [...]
In July 2006, SEOMoz released their now famous page strength tool. The idea was to come up with a better metric for evaluating websites than PageRank. According to Seomoz, the page strength tool was “a better metric to quickly assess a site / page’s relative importance and visibility.” The page strength tool did indeed do [...]
Once again, Dan Jensen has raised the bar in the directory world.
If you have been involved in SEO for more than two minutes, you probably know about Dan’s list of free directories at Vilesilencer. It was the first, and still is the best, list of free directories available. Dan keeps it updated like a clockwork, [...]
Background
On the evening of September 2, 2007 my wife Aviva ran to my office in a panic. She exclaimed that Aviva Directory no longer seemed to be ranking for its own name in Google. I tried searching this, and sure enough, she was right. Even searching for “Aviva Directory” with quotes did not bring up [...]
With all the internet marketing blogs today filled with information about social media marketing (and gossip about social media marketing!), it is nice to see some articles that deal with good, old school link building in a thorough and comprehensive manner.
Webcredible, a leading UK based usability and accessibility specialist has just published The Ultimate Guide [...]
Here’s the latest update of directory backlinks (results are as of Monday, January 10). There seems to be a general trend downwards – it’s unclear whether this is due to the way Yahoo! calculate backlinks or whether backlinks are actually decreasing on many directories. However, several directories backlinks dropped considerably, and a few directories backlinks have [...]
We have just done an update to our best web directories list. There haven’t been any major changes since the last update; just a few minor shifts in position.
Therre is a great post over at Fuzzuck about directory editing. They talk about how although most directory owners pay lip service to editorial integrity, few actually follow through. Although directory editing is not as glamorous as most subjects discussed in the directory community, it is actually one of the most important factors that will [...]
Someone with a new directory recently asked me for advice on how to market it. Here are 9 marketing strategies that you can use:
1. Directory Lists. You want to make sure that you are on every possible directory list imaginable. Hunt them down and get your directory added. People use these lists as a basis [...]
A lot of people have requested that I update the list of Which Directories Have The Most Backlinks post. I have been somewhat hesitant to do so. Although backlinks to a web directory are no doubt important, I think there is too much emphasis in the industry on backlinks, and not enough on the content [...]
Three leading web directories got mentioned recently in the Washington Post: Apahcinc, Skaffe and Sporge. Here’s a copy of the article:
Unfortunately, the Washington Post, like most of the mainstream media and Wikipedia, did not give link to any of the websites.
There has been a lot of debate about how Google may treat bidding directories. Finally, Matt Cutts has made a statement about this. He says: “a ‘bidding directory’ that just gives the top slot to the highest money bid might not be as trusted by Google [as a high-quality directory].”
Well, that’s about as clear a [...]
Things seem to be really moving at DMOZ. They recently approved a site in only 1 month. That’s got to be one of the fastest approved sites I’ve ever seen.
Our list of web directories sorted by page strength has been updated as of November 27, 2007. Both the page strength of the directories has been updated as well as the prices have been updated. There have been some major changes to the rankings in the last 3 months, so it’s well worth checking over [...]
A little over a month ago I wrote a blog post ranking directories by the number of backlinks that they have. This post is an update. Given the fact that the number of backlinks that Yahoo! reports can vary from hour to hour, I don’t think that a change of less than 5% is very meaningful.
You can [...]
The recent discussion about BigWebLinks reaching 1,000,000 backlinks in Yahoo! (congrats Chris!) got me curious as to the number of backlinks various directories have. So, I’ve prepared a ranking of directories by backlinks.
I’ve used Yahoo! Site Explorer (show inlinks except from this domain option) to find out the number of backlinks, as MSN has disabled [...]
Recently, a controversy has raged about whether Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz should be added to the blacklist of the Quick Buck Crew. The Quick Buck Crew is a site established to out the wost scoundrels of the web – people who scam, cheat and steal from hardworking webmasters like you and me.
Find out everything you want to know about the future of web directories tomorrow evening! Well, maybe not everything, but Jenn Mattern of BizAmmo will be interviewing me on this subject on her weekly internet radio show Chick Tech Talk tomorrow, Wednesday, June 13 at 6.00 pm Eastern Time.
We will be discussing issues such as using web [...]
I am proud to announce that both Aviva and her sister directory SevenSeek have become Authority Directories.
What is an authority directory?
I suppose only Google knows the answer to this. However, for quality websites Google tends to given an extended listing with 4 additional links to the site, as shown in the below screenshot. This is not [...]
When I started my directory over 2 years ago, the directory industry seemed like a different place. People in the industry actually cared about the success of the industry as a whole and about the success each other’s directories.
Unfortunately that seems to be changing. While there have always been scammers and con artists who are directory owners, the [...]
John Scott, founder of Sevenseek, recently launched an aggressive attack against directories that charge annual fees. He:
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.
Antcliff’s article comparing the effectiveness of directory submissions with social media marketings, and which I responded to, has caused quite a bit of a storm. I’ve learnt a lot from this discussion:
1. The topic was debated on Digitalpoint.
2. There was a good discussion of the topic on Yack Yack, a quality blog I hadn’t previously known [...]
From across the pond, Antcliff boldy proclaims that “directories are dead.” He clarifies this – no, directories are not dead, they just are not as effective in building links as linkbaiting. This sentiment seems to be growing in the SEO community.
Unfortunately, this is just plain wrong. Directories are an effective means of promoting your website, particularly if you have [...]
There has been a somewhat unnoticed revolution in the directory industry over the last twelve months. The directories of yesteryear are declining into irrelevance while a new breed of aggressive young directories are moving to fill the void.
Let’s look at the giants of old:
1. DMOZ. DMOZ is the granddaddy of all directories. Of course, there [...]
Yesterday I reported that a corrupt DMOZ editor was buying votes in order to win the February 2007 Phpld Directory of the Month competition. As a result, I disqualified his entries. He responded, and I quote:
“Lol show me the rule where it says ” No buying votes ” , i will let you go with [...]
I have had to disqualify two directories and two templates from the February PhpLD Directory of the Month Contest. The disqualified entries are:
From best designed directory:
1. H-log
2. Sbclansite
From best free template:
1. City Theme
2. Soothing Blue
The grounds for this is that the owner of these directories and templates has offered a 3 months featured listing in [...]
It has been a long time since I looked at DMOZ. People like to criticize DMOZ a lot, but ultimately, despite all their problems, they have the best database of any directory, and they are the strongest directory. Not a bad deal for a freebie.
Anyhow, they seem to have updated their directories page. Much to [...]
Do you want to get paid to help build a valuable resource? To carry out our goal of building a quality web directory, Aviva is looking for freelance directory editors.
The work essentially boils down to finding quality web sites, deciding the appropriate category to list them in, and writing an appropriate title and description for [...]
I found an interesting blog post today that detailed the 10 most important things to look for in a directory (when it comes to Google). The post contains a number of good tips and concludes with the important advice to emphasize quality directories over submitting to a large number of directories.
I think that the most [...]
The owner of 1st Choice Search Directory has published a step-by-step tutorial on moving a PHPLD directory to another server.
In this detailed tutorial, he explains the whole process in 5 steps. Besides explanation, there are screenshots that make this easy to do, even if you don’t have any clue about it.
You can read the pdf [...]
This is a nice mod that will display the stats for your directory and show your visitors that your site is alive. The installation is easy and requires little code changes in a few files. For code and installation instructions visit this thread on the PHP Link Directory forums
Also, you can change the look of the stats [...]
