Free directories - It makes no sense!

[jacal1]

Do they actually build traffic? As an avid internet user I have never in my life ended up on or searched out any of the free directories I've seen mentioned here. Is it really worth any time to submit sites to "free" directories? Have you actually seen traffic from them?

 

[mbuna]

I only use them for backlinks, which help your google PR, and consequently your google search rankings.

 

[jacal1]

I saw your other thread - thanks for that! I thought that if no one ever clicks on a back link it does no good - do I have that wrong?

 

[mbuna]

as long as google spiders their site it benefits your site. Traffic is simply an added bonus IMO.

 

[whitebark]

Search engines count backlinks and weigh them using a number of criteria as part of their search algorithms.

Most directories will never send you any traffic. Some directories though on the other hand will - it all depends on the directory. For instance i have 1800canada.ca as a directory and people search for that quite regularly and end up using it to go to other websites - including my own listed there.

 

[jacal1]

So, even if it just sits at a directory and gathers dust, it gets counted and worth a little bit...okay I get that. But wouldn't google dislike "directory" sites because they have so many outward links?

(Rep for all who have answered and who answer from here on with helpful answers when the thread ends. I appreciate the help.)

 

[shockie]

most directories, especially free ones, contribute absolutely nothing to traffic. i have a few domains listed in literally hundreds of directories, and there aren't any visitors coming from them at all.

the main reason people submit to them is for backlinks for pr purposes, not traffic. however, i wouldn't be surprised if in the future, google weighs all these free open source directories much less, if their algorithm doesn't already do so now.

if you are looking to get traffic from a directory, be sure to check how much traffic that directory itself is getting, as well as how many links are there, where yours will be placed, etc. if your site is listed among thousands on a directory that gets very little traffic, don't expect to get any from them. searching the domain up on alexa can give you a rough idea.

 

[DnPresident]

I saw TwilightResearch.com go from 2-3 visitors a day to around 100 visitors per day after submitting them to these directories http://www.twilightresearch.com/creative.html

With in 1 month I got 90-100 more visitors per day. It doesn't do me any good though since the site is just one of the 5 page starter sites Godaddy gives with purchase of domain names and I have no adsense on it but at least if I ever do get it developed it's got a jump on the traffic.

It's actually ranked now, It never was before I submitted to the directories, so I'm a believer.

 

[Varon]

So, even if it just sits at a directory and gathers dust, it gets counted and worth a little bit...okay I get that. But wouldn't google dislike "directory" sites because they have so many outward links?

(Rep for all who have answered and who answer from here on with helpful answers when the thread ends. I appreciate the help.)

It's better not to bother too much about what google wants. These days yahoo is getting better by the day. I honestly feel that Google has another 2 years before it falls and mountain view gets calm. It already gets you the crappiest first page search results for any keyword. If you compare it with yahoo, you will notice the huge change in search results. Yahoo provides clean results and in fact most of my traffic these days originates from yahoo.

Directory site links are very valuable. I have noticed a significant influx of traffic from directories. But here again, not all directories can get you traffic. If you do some research, you can find some traffic directories which can help you get better results. And for the PR, I believe, the backlinks should be developed on a slow pace, rather than a sudden flurry of 600 links in a month. More importantly, they should be links from "similar" content sites. I mean, if my site is domain related and I get backlinks from cookery blogs, it wouldn't help my PR much. But if I develop links from domain forums, tech blogs and article directories, it would help immensely.

Btw, our virtuous google also sells PR8+ links in case anyone is interested. Thats why they invented the "PR" concept. Makes sense... Quite naturally they have given themselves the PR10 ranking. Google is the most important site in the world.... they say so themselves.

Read here..

http://www.seobook.com/archives/002403.shtml

Google sells PR7 links for $10,000 a year.
http://www.conversionrater.com/index.php/2007/02/23/google-selling-pr7-links-for-10000/

 

[GILSAN]

It's better not to bother too much about what google wants. These days yahoo is getting better by the day. I honestly feel that Google has another 2 years before it falls and mountain view gets calm. It already gets you the crappiest first page search results for any keyword. If you compare it with yahoo, you will notice the huge change in search results. Yahoo provides clean results and in fact most of my traffic these days originates from yahoo.

Directory site links are very valuable. I have noticed a significant influx of traffic from directories. But here again, not all directories can get you traffic. If you do some research, you can find some traffic directories which can help you get better results. And for the PR, I believe, the backlinks should be developed on a slow pace, rather than a sudden flurry of 600 links in a month. More importantly, they should be links from "similar" content sites. I mean, if my site is domain related and I get backlinks from cookery blogs, it wouldn't help my PR much. But if I develop links from domain forums, tech blogs and article directories, it would help immensely.

Btw, our virtuous google also sells PR8+ links in case anyone is interested. Thats why they invented the "PR" concept. Makes sense... Quite naturally they have given themselves the PR10 ranking. Google is the most important site in the world.... they say so themselves.

Read here..

http://www.seobook.com/archives/002403.shtml

Google sells PR7 links for $10,000 a year.
http://www.conversionrater.com/index.php/2007/02/23/google-selling-pr7-links-for-10000/

Fascinating information once again from Varon. So Google is slowly becoming a dictatorship. Hurry up Yahoo and others, move your sweet aztecs and bring Google down to earth.

GIL

 

[Varon]

What is Google Page Rank?

Fascinating information once again from Varon. So Google is slowly becoming a dictatorship. Hurry up Yahoo and others, move your sweet aztecs and bring Google down to earth.

GIL

By the way, what exactly is page rank? Here's a myth buster. Are all high PR sites really hosting unique quality content? Simply put, NO. I have seen crappy sites add links from PR6+ sites and slowly get a PR5 themselves. Can a software bot/spider really have brains to read content and understand? All it can do is spider content and links. It has a pre-programmed set of algorithms set to look out for. For example, it comes to your site and finds that your site has X inbound links and Y outbound links, it then figures out that you have some PR9 links coming in. The spider loves those PR9 links coming in and thinks (err...can it?) and immediately decides that your site is one important site with great content.

Ah... and we are forced by google to create PR to get higher SERP's etc. This Page Rank theory was created solely for the purpose of later making money out of it. Today, I'm sure they have a nice "PR sales" profit center operating. And it hasn't improved their search content one bit.

I am trying to make one of my crappiest sites a PR6 site and will post results when that happens. Sometimes its good to play the google games. It can help you make money with a straight face. Google is already going after me for my earlier comments by closing my publisher account with some clumsy reason .. I still send them money to research their spidering software by being their adwords customer. Hopefully with these new comments they will also close my adwords account or lower the PR on all my sites.

Google..

 

[montsa007]

Do they really count it as backlinks?

 

[Varon]

Do they really count it as backlinks?

You mean the directory links? Yes, they do count them as backlinks.