Why are directories disliked by Google ?

[welshboy]

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 ?

[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...

[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.