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 statement as you will ever get from Google on the issue.  So, it seems clear to me that Google does not like bidding directories.

I certainly don’t agree with Google on the issue.  I mean, if Yahoo! Directory had the exact same content as it does but instead sorted its listings by bid amount, would it really be a less useful resource?  I can’t really see how that would be the case.  Does a page of resources become less useful because it is in a different order?  Is a list of resources sorted alphabetically or by pagerank (as in the Google directory) really a more useful order to list things?

In any event, Google doesn’t care about my opinion, or the problems with its position.  That being said, a quality bid directory will provide good traffic and can still be worth getting a listing in, especially if you are targeting a webmaster audience.