Paid directories ok by Google?

[accelerator]

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Hi All

I have been submitting my sites to directories, but I've found many are now asking for a small fee (a few dollars) for inclusion. Does Google frown upon this or is it ok?

Rgds

[mtuffin]

Hi All

I have been submitting my sites to directories, but I've found many are now asking for a small fee (a few dollars) for inclusion. Does Google frown upon this or is it ok?

Rgds

Paying for directory inclusion used to be ok in Google's eyes (such as the Yahoo directory as it was to compensate the editor. Google even used to recommend it in their webmaster guidelined (source).

Most of them charge a small fee but are still worthless really, there's thousands of free ones so if you are going to use them stick to the free ones and save yourself some cash, or stump up the cost of being in the decent ones.

Mike

[regencychess]

Agreed... there are 1000s of free ones out there. Rather than pay for the paid ones why not pay a human submission service to submit to 500 or so free human edited directories? Some of these services are not so good but if you pick the right one it can be very useful. Human edited directories are always a better bet than fully automated ones.

[Dynamoo]

The daddy of all directories is the Open Directory Project, but they don't list affiliate sites. Other directories which *may* be counted as authoritative by Google potentially include Yahoo, JoeAnt, Skaffe, and Go Guides. These all have the advantage that editors review each submission, which (theoretically) makes it a high-quality link.

Directories are much less important than they were. I don't think that Google counts very many of them as being important.

[regencychess]

Directories need to be viewed as just one part of the varied diet of links that an SEO campaign needs to work. Although a DMOZ listing can be worth a lot.... it seems that these days it's virtually impossible to get listed in there.....

[tomj]

read this: Matt Cutts says “Paid Web Directory links are ok!” | Linkrain Articles.....its very old tho.......

[Elaine]

Simple test before submitting to any directory or site - check it's listed in Google, preferably at No 1 for it's own name - it it's not on the first page I wouldn't bother.

[mtuffin]

read this: Matt Cutts says “Paid Web Directory links are ok!” | Linkrain Articles.....its very old tho.......

Good article, and was valid at the time, but Google took it out of their recommendations AFTER this article was published that submitting to directories was ok.

Mike

[regencychess]

Simple test before submitting to any directory or site - check it's listed in Google, preferably at No 1 for it's own name - it it's not on the first page I wouldn't bother.

Good point... also worth checking to see what google PR the homepage of the directory has. You can of course go deeper and check inbound links to the hompage, or even check those links out... but if you are submitting to multiple DIRs this can be time consuming.

[Dynamoo]

To maybe put it a different way - if you pay for an editor to REVIEW your site (who may or may not list it), then that's probably a good thing. If you simply pay for a link, that's a bad thing.

[accelerator]

The daddy of all directories is the Open Directory Project, but they don't list affiliate sites. Other directories which *may* be counted as authoritative by Google potentially include Yahoo, JoeAnt, Skaffe, and Go Guides. These all have the advantage that editors review each submission, which (theoretically) makes it a high-quality link.

Directories are much less important than they were. I don't think that Google counts very many of them as being important.

I have looked at JoeAnt, Skaffe, and Go Guides, and they are all either pay $39.99 for review or become an editor (and then I guess you can submit your own site??). Anyway, by the time I've got to the relevant category, I've got down to a PR0 page, so do people reckon it's really worth the review fee?? I paid to go into the Yahoo! Directory and that boosted my site nicely, but with these other directories I'm in two minds.

Thanks