Have you ever wondered about how Google handles paid directories? Well, Matt Cutts answers the question “Are paid directories held to the same standards as paid links?” from the famous Blind Five Year Old and I personally liked what Matt had to say. Before you decide to pay to be in an online directory or choose to create one I suggest you watch the video.
Matt Cutts Explains How Google Handles Paid Directories [Video]
February 23, 2012 By
Written By:
Melissa Fach | Sarasota SEO Services | @seoaware
Melissa is the Managing Editor of Search Engine Journal & owner of SEO Aware, LLC. Her company specializes in the Psychology behind online sales and conversion. She is a self-proclaimed Star Wars and Internet geek and volunteers with big cats at BigCatHabitat.org.
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How does Google know how much editorial discretion Yahoo uses? I’ve never heard of anyone that I know tell me they haven’t been accepted into Yahoo Directory when they fork over the $300–maybe I only know honest, upstanding folks that only submit good sites. But then again, I’ve never read online anywhere that I remember about a site being rejected by Yahoo either…
To be honest, I’m a little bit surprised at what Matt stated here. Why should paid directories – regardless of how much effort they put in to filter through their submissions – be held to any other standard than any other site with anchor text / dofollow links?
A paid directory is much like buying a permanent link on a site – it’s something that’s expected to be on a certain relevant page for much longer than a guest / paid blog post, etc. which will drip off of the front page eventually. The only benefit to forking out the cash to Yahoo! or bribing a DMOZ editor is to get your link on to a static page with minimal outbound links and years of history behind it.
Google should be treating these “big” or “trusted” directories just like any other links, paid or unpaid, using the trust and relevance metrics that they normally would.
Erik, I couldn’t agree more. An expensive backlink as long as you pay for it.
Erik I don’t think he was necessarily saying ALL paid links are bad per se… I think he means they’re looking a little deeper to see if the directory owner is some creep who bought a recently expired but decent PageRank domain and is attempting to make a quick buck off of people who are willing to buy links just to appease Google….
So it sort of sounds like Google is trying to determine your motives for buying a link – if your motive is to just grab a high PR link then bad on you – but if say the directory is BBB and your business has been vetted by BBB as reliable and you pay to be accredited, that’s a little different…
Those fly by night directories that pop up running generic PHP scripts in the place of a recently expired website however, where ANYONE can pay for a link with no curation to their link library… ill advised.
Pretty much self-evident.
At least in theory, with Google, everything gets down to the “value added”.
Editorial control = value added. Pay for inclusion isn’t synonymous with editorial control. Ditto for paid links.
Editorial control = G+1 by another name.
In general I don’t use directories to provide link value. But I do think of them as opening a new doorway to a Web site and if a relevant audience is using that directory, I don’t really care if it doesn’t provide link value, but I do care about the type of person it sends to me. The “100 Directory Submission” schemes are tired and old and don’t work.
@Chris – Your comment “I don’t think he was necessarily saying ALL paid links are bad per se” runs contrary to everything that Google & Cutts specifically have been saying over the last few years. They have said that basically all paid links are bad links–even if the paid link is completely relevant to the content on the page you’re buying the link on–unless, apparently, it comes from a “high quality” directory that exerts editorial control.
Apparently they have a way to tell if a directory exerts editorial control? Especially when that directory is (or was) one of their biggest competitors over the years?
I still don’t understand why relevancy doesn’t matter more than status as paid or not paid–but that’s what Google has said pretty consistently over the past few years.
It’s a matter of being transparent, I think. Featured positions on directories may be presumed to be paid for . Much like ads. Links where that it may not be so apparent are being purchased are different.
@Tony – seems like we’re talking in circles and basically in agreement whether you realize it or not… Jeff Libert sort of summed it up – they say they HATE paid links BUT right in this video they “sorta kinda” admit that “value added” or a “curated” directory, even if it’s a paid one, has more value than a directory anyone can join or submit to, or possibly and in some cases more value than a contextually relevant directory.
Below is a quote of a quote of what you quoted me on lol – the opening sentence that you quoted says almost the exact SAME THING that you concluded the paragraph with – quote me make on argument, debate with me, but then you end the sentence notion with the sentence, “UNLESS…” where you go on to repeat the very point I made and you quoted the only difference is that now it’s in your own words.
I was comparing a directory where the paid links are thoroughly reviewed to one that is running a free PHP script and anyone with cash can get in… you’re saying paid links vs paid links with “editorial control…”
Same difference:
[begin quote of a quote]
@Chris – Your comment “I don’t think he was necessarily saying ALL paid links are bad per se” runs contrary to everything that Google & Cutts specifically have been saying over the last few years. They have said that basically all paid links are bad links–even if the paid link is completely relevant to the content on the page you’re buying the link on–unless, apparently, it comes from a “high quality” directory that exerts editorial control.
[end quote of a quote]
Interesting. How can Google keep on top of which directory is vetted and which directory is not?
I have paid for the odd few in the past but usually only pay when i know i will get the right users. Traffic means nothing to me unless its a relevant audience. Would people here recommend the Yahoo directory? seems quite pricy.
Yeah, this is too important question but how Google manages all directories is that vetted or not. It can be possible ?
Matt answered half of my question.
It’s good to know that Google has some guidelines for the value of a directory. However, the ‘editorial oversight’ provided by these directories (even the big ones) seems pretty cursory. Apart from overseeing whether my payment was valid, it’s pretty rare to be rejected for anything but truly blatant spam.
But if you use ‘editorial oversight’ as the benchmark I find it difficult to reconcile that with highly relevant paid links on a site or blog. If I take great care and only provide paid links to relevant and valuable content, haven’t I passed the ‘editorial oversight’ benchmark?
In fact, doesn’t that site or blog have greater expertise in that topic than the directory? And most would be more selective and have fewer links than your average directory. I’m not saying this is the norm or even the majority but why the alternate standard for those that do apply this type of ‘editorial oversight’ to paid links?
I just don’t see much (if any) difference between a paid directory and paid link with ‘editorial oversight’. The ONLY difference is that Google can easily identify directories but can’t confidently identify a highly relevant paid link.
Google wants to have their cake and eat it too.
After putting my toes in the seo water – I’m really surprised anyone bothers with directories at all any more. Looking at traffic sources, results and stats, has led me to conclude that over the last few months especially, traffic is driven by tags, content and domain authority. Directory listings drive such low traffic that I see no point in using them at all? Or maybe I’m wrong and the result is peculiar to our site?