Misconceptions related to directory links and SEO

Every time Google comes up with a new ranking algorithm update, the bloggers and webmasters start reconsidering their link building strategies. One of the most common doubts is related to the directory links. People start doubting the benefits of directory submissions and start thinking if it is worth giving time to this aspect of SEO. There are a number of misconceptions related to directory links which are cleared in this post.

Myth 1: Directory links are of no worth after the recent Google Updates and don't help in SEO

Fact: One can say that the value of directory links has decreased over the past few years. But saying that they have completely lost their importance is not practical. In fact, a number of SEO experts still make use of directory submissions to rank their websites for certain keywords. Following conclusions can be derived from our experiments with directory submissions:

1. Directory submissions were able to improve the rankings of even those websites that were not present on the front pages of search results inspite of having good informative content and diverse backlinks.

2. The directory submission also helped to rank websites for certain long tail keywords even without having any previous links at all.

Thus, it can be concluded that directory links do help in improving the SEO for a website and thus they must be a part of the overall linking strategy. An important thing to take care here is that multiple terms should be targeted so as to avoid it appearing like spam.

Myth 2: Too many directory links can harm the ranking of your websites's SEO

Fact: This is true for any other link building strategy as well like blog commenting or social bookmarking. Again, the excess directory links will be harmful only if you do not focus on link diversity. ,Search engines are giving a lot of importance to link diversity and thus if you use different keywords for the links, it will not do any harm. Again, you should try to use other link building strategies in conjugation with directory submission. This will give you better results in terms of rankings.

Myth 3: You should avoid making many submissions at one time

Fact: This mainly depends on the age of your website. If your website is new, then you should start at a slow pace and add the directory links gradually. Once, your website is properly indexed and starts getting some organic traffic, you can increase the rate of directory submissions. Again make sure that you mix the directory links with various other types of links as well like through web 2 sites. In case, you have an established website, then submitting too many directory links at one time will not have any negative effect. This is because of the fact that different directories take a different amount of time in approving the submitted posts. Thus, you will not get all the links at one time, even if you submit the posts on different directories at one time.

Myth 4: Manual submissions can be replaced by automated directory submissions for SEO

Fact: One of the most common mistakes done by new bloggers is that they get allured by automated directory submissions made through software. This can create a lot of problems because the software tools do not check the categories before posting and are unable to post on directories with captcha enabled. Since most of the high PR and established directories have captcha enabled, the use of software tool is not much productive.

Myth 5: You should make links only to your homepage from directories

Fact: There are a number of article directories that allow you to submit links of individual posts. This can help you to diversify your link portfolio as well.

Myth 6: Directory links are only temporary

Fact: In reality, the links provided by the directories are permanent and thus stay forever. However, if a person starts spamming an article directory, his account may be banned resulting in deletion of earlier posts.

Myth 7: There are no benefits of submitting links to low PR directory

Fact: Actually, the Page Rank changes every 2-3 months and thus even if you are submitting a directory link on a PR0 directory, it might attain higher PR in future. Again, once the directories achieve higher PR they become paid.

Myth 8: There is no benefit of submitting to directories that look alike

Fact: It is quite possible for two article directories to have similar structure or design. But the value of both the directories in terms of SEO or passing the link juice is different.

So, these were the common misconceptions related to directory links. In brief, we can say that directory links are still effective and thus they should be included in overall link building process for a website.

Read Some Link building practices to be avoided: guidelines from Google