Directory links and strategy

Directory links

Getting directory links can be a relatively easy and effective way to increase your link popularity, but there are some pitfalls to avoid. Many large and popular directories (DMOZ and Yahoo for example) have a firm policy of only using the site name as the listing title and only linking with the URL itself. While this make it easy for the editors its not as much help as it could be in gaining search engine rankings.

Since directories are a popular method of gaining links many, if not most, of the directories will charge a fee for the listing which can vary from something like $40 up to the $300 which Yahoo charges per year to list commercial sites in its directory.

Not all directories offer spiderable links and such directories may provide you with some traffic but they will not help your link popularity. Links with are done in Javascript, cgi scripts, and which contain the rel="nofollow" attribute are among the most popular methods of hiding links from search engines.

SEO friendly directories

Directories which have spiderable links are considered to be "SEO friendly" and can be important sources of links for your site. You can do a Google search for SEO friendly directories to get a listing of some of these directories and in addition there are several lists which have been compiled to help you with your search

This site has a list of 151 general directories that are SEO friendly and this site has a listing of the most popular SEO friendly directories. There are many others and we will be adding more in our SEO Resources section.

Budget linking time daily

Gaining links from directories can be a valuable addition to your SEO efforts, and a surprising number of links can be gained if you just set a goal of submitting your site to two directories per day. This need only take less than half an hour of your time, (you might want to consider budgeting this amount of time every evening to getting directory links) and at the end of the year your site will have over 700 new links pointing to it.

If you budget an extra half hour per day to also getting relevant anchor text links from two new related sites you will be surprised at how your pages will start to rank.

Back to buying links

Free links

Tips

DMOZ is the most popular free directory and in addition it is where the Google directory draws all its content from, so getting a listing there can be useful.

The problem is that DMOZ is run on a strictly voluntary basis and in some categories there is a long wait to have your submission reviewed.

Many listings for DMOZ are not approved since they do not accept certain types of sites like affiliate sites, porn, hate etc, and many more because the submission does not conform to the DMOZ guidelines/.

The best way to get a normal site approve quickly is to first of all search DMOZ for the keyword you consider represents your overall site best and submit to that category. Study the DMOZ listing guidelines, but more importantly study the listings in the category you want to be listed in carefully and use this information as a guide to writing your own submission,

If you have not heard from the DMOZ editor in two months or so you can go to the DMOZ forum and submit a query to the appropriate site submission status thread in order to find out what is happening to your submission.

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