Mass Directory Submission

[WestEagle]

I have heard both sides. That it can hurt you and that it can help. I figure, the more directories my sites are on, the more likely someone will accidentally find them, regardless of Google ranking. I'm no SEO pro though. Maybe it isn't a good idea if you have an established site, but if you're getting no results, why not just submit to as many directories as you can. Worst case scenario, you are back where you started.

[legitebiz]

Submitting to directories can only help you. Maybe it will not turn out to be a direct source of traffic, but it will surely add up to your link building efforts and if it does, this means more Google page rank in the future and more visit from search engines.

Of course, if your site is linked only to PR 6 or higher sites and you start linking to PR 1 directories it may have a negative effect, but even then I am not 100% sure that it will. As far as I know, the more the better.

[Albertbndr]

Yes, when we are submitting our site to some directory then it should have the same PR or more than ours. this is a simple strategy used and should be taken care of.. Rather than going for paid submission or reciprocal linking to directories doesn't count so much worth as like free submission. it takes a long time for getting approved but at least it doesn't harm our site and ranking.

[Garry]

Directory Submissions will certainly help you in the SEO work of your website. Directories give Backlinks which are really important in order to get good rankings in Search Engines. However, it is suggested that you should do Regular submissions of your website into the Directories to get better rankings.

For example, it is better to Submit your website into 15-20 Directories Regularly rather than submitting your website into 500 Directories at a time in a Month. You will definitely get better rankings if you do the Directory submissions regularly.

[HomeComputerGames]

Directories have lost much of their value compared to years before as far as backlinks. Except perhaps Google and Yahoo..

Putting your name out there helps no matter if the link is do follow or no follow. Someone might click it and end up being your biggest customer.

For importance in SEO though? Search and see if you find Amazon or EBGames or any of the high traffic sites on them.

my 2 cents

[Albertbndr]

The worst part of this is the directories are human edited directories and we are not getting much traffic from there but the backink that we get from there counts worth and search engines are using the web directories data for search queries.

[HomeComputerGames]

I have never seen any real harm from mass directory submissions. I have seen negative results from a large jump in one way links from other types of sites for a short time. Even when I frequent a new forum it seems there is a small sandbox effect for a couple of days where I I'll drop a couple of placements and then shoot up better than ever.
I have heard of sites being banned for getting a large amount of 1 way links overnight. No normal site should get 1000 links in one week when they only get 200 visitors per week. I guess common sense comes into play here.

[Garry]

Well, when it comes to Mass Directory submissions, it may not have a very bad effect on your website. However, if you do mass directory submissions at a time, you won't get the effect you will get if you do limited Directory submissions regularly.

Actually, it is noticed that Google gives more importance to websites which generate backlinks naturally i.e. links generated at a steady speed. If your website gets 15-20 Backlinks from Directories on a Regular basis, this seems to be natural, however, if your website gets 200-300 backlinks in a day, this is certainly not natural.

[HomeComputerGames]

I agree natural is better and mass submissions probably are not the best method.

I was reading somewhere that directories are treated more as advertisements than natural backlinks. Like when starting a marketing campaign you might have 100 or more banner and text ads go into effect at one time.

Plus, If mass submissions had a negative effect it would be easy to manipulate your competitors. So you could hire out someone to submit 5000 directory submissions for a competitor just to knock them down in the SERPS. I have heard tell of people purchasing links for competitors and then reporting them for a paid link.

[Garry]

Originally Posted by HomeComputerGames

I was reading somewhere that directories are treated more as advertisements than natural backlinks. Like when starting a marketing campaign you might have 100 or more banner and text ads go into effect at one time.

Plus, If mass submissions had a negative effect it would be easy to manipulate your competitors. So you could hire out someone to submit 5000 directory submissions for a competitor just to knock them down in the SERPS. I have heard tell of people purchasing links for competitors and then reporting them for a paid link.

Directory submissions won't give you much benefit in terms of Advertisements. If you have banners on directories then you cannot expect much traffic or benefit from it (if you get a banner for free, you can consider it as a benefit ) as most of the directories do not have much traffic and people mostly visit those directories to submit links.

Instead of having banners on those directories, you should try to get links or banners of your website on high traffic websites with good rankings which will give you more benefit.

When it comes to doing mass directory submissions to manipulate your competitors, I think this is not a good idea as you should work hard and find more techniques to get good rankings for your website as working for manipulating your competitors won't give you any benefit.

"To Focus on Winning is better than to Focus on Defeating your Competitors".