This blog called also be called “How To Spot A Crap Directory“.
I have Google Alerts set up to tell me whenever a new niche directory comes online. Today a promising one appeared, but it soon proved to be a waste of time, so I did not submit my details.
The “in yer face” Adsense tripped me at the first hurdle, made me think that I did not want to associate my brand with that site. But I looked around a little more.
The site provided some stats on the righthand sidebar about the site usage. Why they bothered is beyond me as all the stats revealed is that the person running it had already given up. This is what the stats said:
Statistics
Active Links: 20
Pending Links: 275
Todays Links: 2
Active Articles: 0
Pending Articles: 48
Todays Articles: 0
Total Categories: 44
So this shows that 275 people have submitted their link to the directory, yet so far only 20 have been approved. What is worse, is that 48 people have submitted articles, and none have been approved.
Most of these sorts of directory are PHPLD (PHP Link Directory) and a quick look at the source code of the new one I say today shows:
<meta name=”generator” content=”PHP Link Directory 4.1.0″ />
As it is set up with SEO in mind, SEO for the owners own sites, not their clients, then this directory probably will survive a few more years than average, but as it has already achieved the pagerank goal (just 2) it probably no longer approves new listings (not enough time to moderate them all).
Just took one further look at the site before closing the tab, and see that in the footer they link to various other websites in that niche. Proof that they only purpose of this directory is to provide the owner with some links to other sites. Looks like reciprocal link listings are preferred, so they aim to increase the pagerank of the directory homepage and make their own links more valuable.
This really just shows that the directory is dead before it has been started. Not really sure why anyone would start a web directory and then do nothing with it, but then hundreds of web directories spring up each week, made by people that have bought into a “make money online” scam, and quickly realised that making money online is actually much more involved that setting up a generic web directory script to automatically create content and then revenue.
When I first got into web design and SEO I submitted my first site to many web directories. A few years later I stumbled across the file on my PC where I was recording my submissions. I decided to check them out, more out of curiosity than any business requirement, and was slightly shocked to see that only about 5% of the directories I had submitted to were still running. Most had been abandoned after the first domain renewal period.
This is the reason why I tell people now to never bother submitting to free directories and not to use link building companies that say that they submit links to directories. It’s a waste of time and money.
