Directories to Avoid that Don't Pass PR
It is getting very hard to find directories that pass PR (Page Rank) because too many webmasters are using methods that deliberately prevent their web pages from passing PR. This is often because too many outgoing links on a page reduces the PR of that page and thus the whole site suffers. Sometimes they do this and also require you to trade links so you get no benifit whatesoever and yet your link benefits their website. In essence they are stealing your PR and giving nothing in return. Some of these dishonest linking methods can do grievious harm to your website so use discression when submitting to any of the types of sites listed below.
Penalities for Some Directories
NOTE: As of late August 2007 Google has started banning or penalizing directories for selling links for the purpose of gaining PR. Some features of penalized directories were bidding for rank directories, text link directories, directories involved in network schemes designed to increase their own PR so they have a high enough PR so they can sell links, and linking to bad neighborhoods.
How to Spot a Penalized or Banned Directory
Search for a directory's business name in Google before submitting and make sure they haven't been banned or penalized (if banned they will not be indexed, if only penalized their home page may not be listed first like it should be and they won't rank for their own business name or title). Also check to see if they allow bad neighborhoods to be listed in their directory.
The Only Safe Method of Gaining Links
The best method of gaining links is to provide information that people will link to without your asking. If you pay for links then only submit to sites that charge a fee for the review (not for the purpose of gaining PR). They might still prevent the link from passing PR by putting a rel="nofollow" tag on the link but at least you might get some traffic.
Ripoff Directories
Seoma.net
You have to signup and pay $15.00 to become a member but if they don't list your site you can't get your money back because they have no contact link. They have a login form which works but still no contact info to get ahold of them.
Info-listings.com
They offer a guaranteed listing for $19.95 (as long as you don't break their rules) but then don't list your site even though you didn't break any of their rules. And no contact info which means you can't get your money back.
Too Many Links
This is one of the most important features to look for because page rank is divided between all the links on the page. Even though the page itself may have a high PR what it passes on to other sites may be next to nothing if there are a lot of links on the page (anything over 10 links). So the less links the better!
302 Redirects on links
Some directories put code on the outgoing links that uses software that tracks clicks. Some of these codes are harmless but some steal PR from your site. There are several methods of doing this. See the hijacking web page PR for more details on how to spot 302 Redirects on links.
Whenever you are looking for a directory to submit your site to run the mouse over one of the links of a site listed in their directory and look at the actual link. It may have the following in the URL "redir.asp?" or "id=(some number here)." Notice the "redir". That means there is a redirect on this link . Also the "id=" is another clue that it's being redirected as the number is used in place of the site name. Check this link in a server header checker and you will likely find a 302 or even a 301 redirect telling search engines that the content of the site listed in their directory is now the property of this directory. It may be a tracking code and not a malicious 302 redirect so check in this search engine friendly redirect checker also.
Javascript Links
Some directories use javascript around links. There are various ways to hide the Javascript: (1) Sometimes the supposed link to your site is actually a link to their cgi bin where they have another page with a Javascript redirect pointing at your site. Search engines can't read Javascript so you get no credit for that link in their directory. (2) Sometimes they will list your site in their directory but when you run your mouse over the "link to your site" all you see is "Javascript://". This link takes the visitor to the site but the search engines cannot pick up that link or give credit for the PR because they can't read javascript. So all JavaScript controlled links in such directories are worthless except for some occasional traffic..
Scraper Directories
Some directories take the data off the page you wanted them to link to (title and description) and put it on another page called a "More Info" or "Details" with the title of your page in their title. This can result in their pages ranking above your site if their site has higher PR and it will hurt your traffic so always check out some of the links to other sites listed in their directory before submitting your website.
Links in frames
If their outgoing links are in frames search engines will never see it as they cannot read what is in frames. You can tell this because that portion of the page will have it's own scroll bar. Sometimes the link that appears go be going to your site will open in a frame still on their site. either way the visitor will never get to your site.
More Info Pages Steal your PR and Rank
Directories sometimes list a site and include a "more info" link or they may call it something else. Check the links in such a directory to see if they actually go to the website they have listed. If their own domain is first in the URL and some categories then that link goes to another page in their own directory. This often results in their putting this sites title in the title of that next page (which is designed to compete with that site for their keywords in the title).
Some sites take it one step further and put all relevant info for that site in an image (which search engines can't read) and provide no link whatsoever to the site in their directory, so they are not only NOT linking to the site they are stealing their rank at the same time. Human visitors seeing that second page can't view the site when there is no URL and of course with no link the search engines don't credit the site for the link either.
Often these sites have Ads on them and get paid for anyone who clicks on the ads. The human visitor will probably get bored and click on one of the Ads to go somewhere else. Guess what? This directory is designed specifically for that purpose, to bore their visitors so they will click on the Ads.
.PHP and .ASP Scripts
Those sites developed with .php and .asp scripts with session IDs to track clicks will prevent PR from passing to any site they link to. A .php script looks like this:
www.domain.com/link.php?id-990
The most important part is the ID=. Look for a similar link for .asp scripts. Check the PR before submitting as not all PHP and ASP sites use session IDs.
No Follow Tags
If the page has www.AnyBody'sDomain.com/ rel="NOFOLLOW" on the links (you have to view code source to see this) then it's telling the search engine to not follow the links and thus to not index or record the link and not pass on the PR either. Some directories will even charge a fee to get your site listed and then they put a no-follow on the link. NOTE Google has started penalizing directories that sell links for the purpose of gaining PR and tells them to use the No-Follow tag on all outgoing links or disallow those pages in robot's text file. Directory owners are doing this to protect themselves so submitting to directories may be a thing of the past soon.
Directories Banned in Robots.txt
Check every site that looks too good to be true to see if they have dissalowed Googlebot for the directory you are submitting to. To check this just add robots.txt on the end of their domain and look for
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /TheDirectoryYouWantToBeListedIn/
Avoid Directories that Sell Text Links
Search engines are trying to prevent dishonest means of gaining backlinks so sites that sell links can lose their ability to pass PageRank and as of spring 2006 this is indeed happening to Text Link Directories and also bidding directories where you can get your site ranked higher on the page.
Avoid Spammers
Sites that use Javascript spam, comment tag spam, alt tag spam, JavaScript redirects, doorway pages and other means of spamming the search engines will cause your site to be banned or penalized if you link to them so don't trade links with such sites and check all your outgoing links with the Google tool bar and remove any that are gray barred which means they have been penalized by Google. Also check to see if they are indexed in Google.
Avoid Placing Their Link on your Home Page
If they require you to trade links and insist on your putting their link on your home page it will drain PR from your most important page. Never do this.
Check their Refund Policy
If you pay for submission check to make sure they have a guaranteed refund if they don't list your site otherwise they can keep your money. Yahoo and other quality directories charge for Review and not submission. It takes time to review a site so their charge is fair, however I rarely submit to sites that don't refund at least part of the money if your site is not accepted.
No Contact Information
If you pay for submission check to make sure they have contact information because sometimes they accept payment and then don't list your site and with no contact information you can't get your money back. You can try the whois contact info for that site however but often that information is outdated also, if the site is running a dishonest submission scheme.
More Directories to Avoid
Their link page has NO PR
This usually happens to a new page that went online since the last Google PR update. If this is the case it will have a white bar in the Google Toolbar. This can also be caused by the page being generated by scripts that prevent the passing of PR mentioned above under ASP Scripts which occurs on most dynamically driven databases. If the pages are mostly empty it may be the site is just too new. If it doesn't look like a database go ahead and submit but this site may not help you till after the next Google PR update. If the toolbar is gray see Spammers above.
Alphabetized Listings
Usually directories that list sites alphabetically have to continually upgrade their pages when they get too long and this results in your site being pushed farther back and constantly changing the linking page and often the PR as new pages have no PR.
Too Many Banners, Logos, Thumbnails
Unless they limit each page to only a few images this will result in too many images per page, thus the page will load slow and search engines will never index the content of that page. Unless they also add link text to the images search engines will never see the link text and thus not your keywords either. Avoid them.
Too long URLS
Many directories will put your link several directories deep. The more directories you have to pass through to get to your link the less your PR.
Dynamic URLS with "?"
Some directories are run by databases that produce dynamic URLS that have "?" in them. One "?" isn't so bad but if there are more than a few it will probably not pass PR.
Too many Google ads
If the main purpose of the directory appears to be for displaying ads, and they appear before the directory listings and have several versions of ads on the page don't submit to this site as they don't have your benefit in mind, but their own. Sometimes they appear to be linking to other sites but when you follow the links it goes to an inside page on their own site and there is no link to the site you wanted to check out. So what do you do? You click on one of the Google ads to go somewhere else. And who gets paid for this? The directory you just left that cheated submitters out of a valid link.
Too Many - Not Enough Categories
Often sites will group several categories and sub categories on the same page to save space or time but this will make the submissions irrelevant. Avoid them.
Text is too Small to Read
Small text may be readable on a PC but the same text is unreadable on a Mac. If the text is too small they don't have their visitors best interest in mind. Avoid them.
Avoid Link Trades When Possible
You shouldn't trade links with all sites you submit to as you will be draining PR from your site and Google has started discounting traded links anyway. Only trade links with those sites with a higher PR than your own site or will bring traffic. Also check their link text to make sure they aren't in direct competition with your site.
For more information on this topic see:
Directories that Pass PR (Page Rank)
How to find Scraper Directories
Keyword Strategy
Getting good Backlinks
If you would like your web site analyzed for a drop in keyword ranking due to a possible Hijacking
please check out the Website Evaluations page.
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Lori Eldridge
www.loriswebs.com
Copyright © September 14, 2005 - Updated 10-30-07
All rights reserved.
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