Please note: The information provided in the 58+ pages on this website was written in 2008 and contains old and out-dated information. I will be releasing new updated information soon that will show you how to get around the problems facing most of the web directories online today. So please sign up to the newsletter to get the soon-to-be released update!Search engines want to deliver the best results they can to their users. Their entire livelihood rests on the quality of search results they deliver. Any websites that partake in blackhat SEO tactics to artificially boost their rankings or that don’t follow certain guidelines face being penalized. It is the search engines way of enforcing their editorial guidelines. It’s a hard fact but if you follow some basic guidelines your site(s) should never be banned from the SERPS.
Here are some guidelines for keeping your sites in good standing with the major search engines. They are in no particular order.
The Use of Certain Keywords or Text:
Using certain keywords or keyword phrases on your directory like Pagerank, Sponsored Links, Link Juice, Links, Bid, Boost Your Rankings, (and possibly even the word Directory) is a good indicator to Google and other search engines that your directory is set up solely for the purpose of manipulating search rankings for your site or the sites you link to. Search engines don’t want people manipulating their results so to avoid this try to not use any text on your site that may set off alarms.
Of course if you choose to sell text links you can always put the title of your link section in a graphic so the search engines don’t pick it up. So instead of just having the words “link sponsors” in text you place it inside a graphic.
Doing this doesn’t protect you from human eyes though and if your site is visited by someone over at Google they will know exactly what you are doing.
Also I know it might be hard to avoid the keyword terms most common for directories such as the term “directory” but it can be done. Your directory might very well be titled “Web Host Directory”. If you can avoid it you should. Other titles such as “Web Hosts”, “Web Hosting Place”, “Best Web Hosts Listed” might be better to use.
Receiving too many links at once
The tortoise wins the race because of its steady and even pace. Link building should be done with precaution. Slow organic growth is always better then receiving 500 links in one month from 500 other directories. The search engines keep track of how many links a site has, where they are coming from and how fast they are acquired.
A surefire way to get banned fast is by receiving hundreds of links all at once. And I am not referring to natural linking i.e. you created a site so fabulous that once you released it every blogger on the planet wanted to link to it. I’m talking about going out and paying for directory submissions, buying site wide text links from a large website or joining a Free For All (FFA) link exchange service.
Receiving links or linking to sites in bad neighborhoods
If you’ve never heard of the term “bad neighborhoods” yet let me explain it to you. A bad neighborhood is a categorization of websites that use questionable SEO tactics (blog spamming, keyword stuffing, cloaking), promote things like porn, casinos, pharmaceutical drugs, spam in some way and are out to make a quick buck even if it’s at the detriment of others.
If you’ve spent any amount of real time on the web you can spot these sites immediately. Sometimes it’s a little harder.
You can control who you link to and you should use discretion when linking out to new sites. Many of the people running questionable sites are avid link exchangers. You might have received some link exchange requests in the past where someone wants you to link to their Viagra site or site that clearly looks like a Made for Adsense (MAF) site. Ignore these requests. Exchanging links with these types of sites will only do you harm.
Basically steer well clear of anything that looks bad. It is time consuming to check every site you link to if you run a directory but you might want to go through your directory if you’ve seeded it and also check new sites that have been submitted.
Selling text links for Pagerank
There was a Pagerank update last year that scared a lot of webmasters. It scared them because their high Pagerank suddenly plummeted and they didn’t know why. One of the things that people thought was that it was because the sites that were penalized were selling text links. This brought up much heated discussions on blogs and forums including Matt Cutts blog.
On one of his old posts on Text links and Pagerank he states:
“Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank.” Those people can probably guess that Google does consider buying text links for PageRank purposes to be outside our quality guidelines.”
Then another more recent post titled “how to report paid links” really ruffled a lot of feathers.
The point is that Google and other search engines see buying or selling links for the sole purpose of boosting a sites ranking is manipulative and can be penalized for.
This hasn’t stopped webmasters from buying or selling text links. Many webmasters make a good amount of extra money from their sites doing this. This type of site monetization will never go away as long as links play such a huge role in where a site ranks in SERPS.
So where does that leave directory owners whose business is primarily selling listings which contain a text link?
Well, to get around looking like you sell text links or Pagerank you simply have to include some guidelines on your directory about how link submissions are handled. Do exactly what Yahoo and Dmoz do… make it clear there is an editorial process that happens when a link is submitted. State that a real person will review the link and your payment (whether or not the site is approved) is nonrefundable.
For some editorial guideline examples visit Dmoz’s Submit URL page, Dmoz’s Guidelines, Yahoo directory TOS, JoeAnt.com’s Guidelines
To get away with selling static text links on your site you will have to be discrete. That means not calling attention to your text link advertisers by placing them all in the same section under “Text Links Sponsors”. If you can, spread them out and include them under a graphic titled “Advertisements”.
Doing anything blackhat
If you do anything deemed to be questionable by search engines with your website i.e. use “blackhat” techniques you are asking to be banned. Doing any of the following will hurt your rankings guaranteed:
- Keyword Stuffing
- Using Invisible Text (Hidden content)
- Creating Doorway Pages
- Cloaking
- Massive Text Link Advertising or Link Farming
Other Things That Can Hurt You
Downtime: Any downtime your site has will affect it’s rankings. If you site is unavailable for a large period of time the search engines will simply drop you from their SERPS. If you bring your site back online within a reasonable amount of time your site should bounce back however.
Bad Domain Names: Make sure you use a clean domain name for your directories. By clean I mean either new or one you know has never been banned before or that has a bad history. If you buy domain names from eBay do some research and make sure the domain has never had any problems in the past.
Not Updating Your Site: If you don’t update your site in a long time search engine spiders will frequent it less and less. It’s a good thing to update your site whenever possible. The more you update it the more spiders will crawl it. Be sure to feed spiders with fresh content. The more you do that the better.
Duplicate Content: Of course never use exact copies of duplicate content found elsewhere online. If you do use articles written by other people then write an original opening or closing paragraph for it. Never use content freely available to everyone “as is”.
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