Why are directories disliked by Google ?

Started by welshboy, 05-19-2010, 17:02:14

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welshboyTopic starter

I was on DP the other day and couldn't for the life of me figure out why everyone on there thinks that directories are hated by google and aren't good for the net.

I'm pretty new to webmastering so was hoping someone could shed some light on the history behind this sentiment ?
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captaincaveman

They're not disliked by Google, but people a couple of years ago got carried away with creating silly spammy directories that were all cross linking and passing link juice unnecessarily. Basically had loads of PR7 Link farms. All of them mostly got banned and since then only the best directories now exist.

It was good for the industry as it let all the crap sites dissappear...
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ak47

Most directories take payment for inclusion and don't use rel="nofollow" which google recommeds all webmasters to do. They just don't want you selling link juice and to be quite frank that's what most directories were doing back then.

things have improved a little since then, but directories are still selling link juice just less so. People have now moved onto selling link juice from content sites and blogs were links can be hidden within text.

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damponting44

Because of these Attributes of the Obviously Manipulative Directories . These aren't "hard and fast" rules - they're just common traits that many of the low quality directories seem to share. Google might take this move, along with some advice for anyone building a directory in the future.

RH-Calvin

Directories are considered spam these days as Google states them as spam sites with very less content. Hence directory submissions are no more beneficial for ranking websites. These websites are rarely crawled and indexed in Google these days.


brookeroberts7

According to Moz research, web directories and local citations still appear to be a small ranking factor – especially for local businesses. However, Google's John Mueller himself has said that directory links "generally" don't help with SEO.

dark404

Quote from: brookeroberts7 on 08-05-2020, 01:25:57
According to Moz research, web directories and local citations still appear to be a small ranking factor – especially for local businesses. However, Google's John Mueller himself has said that directory links "generally" don't help with SEO.
What should I do to rank my website

robicrobote

Historically, web directories were popular in the early days of the internet as a way for users to find relevant websites. These directories were essentially collections of links organized into categories, allowing users to browse through topics of interest and find related sites. However, as search engines like Google became more popular and advanced, they made web directories less relevant.

One reason for this is that search engines use complex algorithms to crawl and index websites, which allows them to provide users with more accurate and relevant search results. Web directories, on the other hand, rely on manual submission and categorization, which can be subjective and prone to errors. As a result, search engines became a more efficient and reliable way for users to find information on the web.

In addition to their declining relevance, some web directories were also abused by website owners who would use them to manipulate search engine rankings. This practice, known as link farming or link spamming, involved submitting a website to hundreds or thousands of directories in order to artificially inflate its link popularity and improve its search engine rankings. This led to a decrease in the quality and usefulness of many directories, and search engines started penalizing websites that engaged in this practice.

As a result of these factors, many webmasters today view directories as outdated and ineffective for improving search engine rankings. While there are still some high-quality directories that can provide value for users and help with SEO, they are generally less important than other strategies such as content creation and link building.



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doomain

Because they were spammed to death about 10-15 years ago, and Google considered them unnatural links. So they punished many directories, even some sites that were using only directory links. Nowadays, Google rather discounts those links than putting a penalty for it.


koshikaa

Quote from: captaincaveman on 05-20-2010, 11:31:57
They're not disliked by Google, but people a couple of years ago got carried away with creating silly spammy directories that were all cross linking and passing link juice unnecessarily. Basically had loads of PR7 Link farms. All of them mostly got banned and since then only the best directories now exist.

It was good for the industry as it let all the crap sites dissappear...

Google warned not to use directories for link building purposes. In fact, directories charged removal fees during the big link purge mess.
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