A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.
In a email a reader recently asked me this question:
Is it necessary to submit your blog to each and every blog directory that is available on internet?
Blogging tips for directory selection
(1) I think it’s best to be very selective about registering your blog in directories so that your blog appears in niche categories from which your may secure organic traffic. In some cases finding a “fit” is not easy so do the best you can do and register with appropriate niche social networking sites as well.
(2) There are both Directories that are free and those you pay a fee to register in.
In all cases, do your backlinks homework before you make choices. You can get free one way non-reciprocal links from high ranked directories for which you do not require to place their links on your site, but do not operate on a basis of false economy by choosing a Directory only because it’s free. It may be a newly sprung up link farm full of spammers and sploggers. So be cautious of the new “free” directories that have sprung up over night. They may free when it comes to registering your blog, but they do make money from the advertising on the Directory site.
(3) Before registering you will need to review how superior the directories determine position and blog rank. You will also need to determine what constitutes a “premium” account and what comes with it, and you may also need information about options for paid sponsorships. In some cases you will find that by paying for a premium account, sponsoring a Category, or being an active member with a popular blog, your blog will be positioned to display first in that category.
(4) My preference is to join blog directories that are already well established, have page ranks that are higher than those of my own blogs, and that attract far more traffic than my blogs do. In addition, I prefer to register my blogs in directories where the editors review and rank blogs. If you are looking for backlinks (who isn’t?) then look for directories that are :
- Free
- Offer one-way links
- Have high Page ranks
- Have high traffic rankings
- Have editor reviewed submissions
Recommended
20 Essential Blog Directories to Submit Your Blog
10 Blog Directories You Should Be Listed in
Giant List of Blog Directories
Top 50 Article Directories By Traffic, Pagerank
Related posts found in this blog:
CodeSucker
May 6, 2009
Great post yet again. I am always looking for more directories to add my blog to, I also vouch for BlogCatalog as a means to building readership. I’d like to see a list of directories.. all the ones on the googlemachine are outdated.
A word of advice: like TT says, alot of these newer free link directories can’t really be trusted. You are going to be making lots of usernames and passwords – an unethical database admin can easily see what password you use.. if you use the same password everywhere, consider that information comprimised. Use new passwords and usernames on sites that look shady – and if it looks too shady.. bounce.
st_hart
May 6, 2009
Great info, thanks for sharing it. I just wonder if the backlinks on the directories are considered quality backlinks and Google include them in calculating a blog’s rank.
timethief
May 7, 2009
@st_hart
Google PageRanks both blogs and Directories. You can determine whether or not the Directory link will be considered to be a quality link by the PageRank it has, and by the Alexa ranking as well.
carolynlee
May 22, 2009
I would also check for them on quantcast.com where you can get traffic and demographic information. If your blog is business related the demographic information will be even more important than the traffic numbers.
Mr. I
May 7, 2009
Looking for One Way links is the best advice. Only Blog Directories benefit from reciprocal links. You place links to them in sidebar = links from all pages for search engines while they give you a link from a small page of website!
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Mr. I
Yes, indeed that’s how it works. So unless the site you link to is sending your traffic what’s the point of linking to them?
davidlind
May 7, 2009
This is just so good. I’m going to be one of your regular readers now. I need stop flying by my britches and start understanding the underpinnings of the blogging world. It’s just a hobby for me but it’s also important to attract more readers. And you clearly understand these things. I just don’t have the patience.
Thanks for another great post.
timethief
May 7, 2009
@David
Hello there and welcome aboard. There is an abundance of information in this blog so feel free to browse it at will. :)
askcherlock
May 7, 2009
As always you have the most prudent and informative information. You should write a book for bloggers. If you have not already considered that, please do.
timethief
May 7, 2009
askcherlock
Thanks so much for the praise I really appreciate it. I may tackle a book in the future but at present I’m remaining focused on fully recovering from the head injury I suffered 7 months ago.
askcherlock
May 7, 2009
Well, I wish you a full and healthy recovery. Please take good care of yourself and know that even while you are recouperating, you are having a positive impact.
timethief
May 8, 2009
@askcherlock
Thanks you for your well wishes. I appreciate them very much.
Faiz
May 9, 2009
Hello from indonesia !! Timethief, follow promotion ok !, god luck and tanks very much.
timethief
August 13, 2009
Thank you for your well wishes.
kate smedley
May 10, 2009
Great advice for bloggers … there’s so much to understand!
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Kate
I’m happy to hear you are a reader. Yes blogging does present us with a learning curve. Hopefully, my blog posts make it easier to learn what you need to know.
Reccemaster
May 10, 2009
Good advice and thanks for the lists… I’ll be working my way through these and applying your advice.
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Reccemaster
You’re welcome and best wishes for better blogging.
irtiza104
May 11, 2009
hello TT,
can you suggest some directories to us please?
peace
timethief
August 13, 2009
@iritza
I will be publishing a post on Directories in the near future so, keep tuned.
Mr Blogger
May 11, 2009
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Mr Blogger
I want to ensure that my posts are comprehensive and contain up to date advice. As well as relying on personal experience I do a lot of research before I write and publish a post.
GoGeta
May 11, 2009
Hello Guru, what entice you to post an article. This article was extremely interesting, especially since I was searching for thoughts on this subject last Thursday.
timethief
August 13, 2009
@GoGeta
I’m happy to hear I published an article you needed just when you needed it.
borniet
May 12, 2009
“My preference is to join blog directories that are already well established, have page ranks that are higher than those of my own blogs, and that attract far more traffic than my blogs do.”
I can only agree to that! There is hardly no use in adding your link (and most often, put a backlink up too), to a directory that is lower rated and visited than your own page…
timethief
August 13, 2009
@borniet
There are so many new Directories popping up every day that undertaking due diligence is important for the reason you isolate and also to be sure that one is not registering their blog in a so-called Directory that Google may view as a link farm. Sadly, many of these so-called directories are link farms.
Link farms
A link farm consists of sites that link to other sites for the sole purpose of increasing their link popularity rating and ranking. Unlike perfectly valid links to sites with related information, sites that participate in link farming contain links to totally unrelated sites. This practice is also referred to as link stuffing. Search engine criteria for quality inbound links has become increasingly tougher due to unscrupulous webmasters trying to achieve incoming links by deceptive techniques, like hidden links, or automatically generated pages designed solely to provide incoming links to websites. These pages are called link farms; they are disregarded by search engines, and linking to a link farm can result in your site being banned entirely.
cslfconnects
May 12, 2009
I was so happy to find your blog. Like others, I’ve been a by-the-seat-of-my-pants WordPresser for a while now, and spend a lot of time concentrating on content and the timeliness of the info I provide. I always feel overwhelmed when it comes to syndication of content and backlinks, and I always want to make the higher-integrity choice when it comes to generating backlinks, etc. Your information is superb. I look forward to coming back and reading what amount to all the tutorials and tips, and have bookmarked the reputable blog directories for later perusal!
I’m hoping that by investing some time in teaching myself about all this, I can get important info out to my readers – both current and potential – since that’s the whole point! :)
Thank you again. I’ve subbed via email!
Mariana Evica
CSLF
timethief
August 13, 2009
@cslfconnects
Thank you for the positive feedback. It’s good to know the information I provide is of value to you.
Rebecca
May 12, 2009
Another great post. Another thing I’d mention, and it happened to me, was coming across a “blog directory” invite via twitter. I clicked on the link, it took me to a site to add my blog, which sadly in my innocence I did and within the hour after doing that I was bombed with over 600 spam comments before I realized what was happening and installed a capture system on my blog. Now, I don’t add my blog to anything unless I’m positive it’s a good solid place.
Ok, and I hope you don’t mind. I’m going to test out the new blogcatalog bar on your blog. I have no idea what will happen, so here goes……..
Rebecca
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Rebecca
Sadly you found out the hard way that being spammed can be a problem if one registers in some of these newly sprung up Directories. They are all financed by third party advertising so it’s crucially important to read their Term of Use, Rems of Service and their Privacy polities prior to making a choice with regard to registering your blog in any Directory.
Buy Backlink
June 11, 2009
It will greatly help me in my SEO activities. :)
You made some good points there. I did a search on the topic and found most people will agree with your blog.
timethief
August 13, 2009
That being the case then you also know how Google views paid links – negatively! I never recommend that my readers purchase backlinks. The result of doing so is that Google can drop a blog’s PageRank and even refuse to index the site.
Darin
July 30, 2009
I really am glad I found this, thank you.
timethief
August 13, 2009
@Darin
You’re welcome.
Tricia
October 4, 2009
thank you for providing so much helpful, reliable info about blogging. your site is well-named!
backlinks
October 6, 2009
Great tips .. I’m glad i have found this site..
Thank you.
Quality Backlinks
October 14, 2009
I didn’t know Google views paid links negatively, and that it can drop a blog’s PageRank and even refuse to index the site. I am glad I haven’t wasted my money then on such links. Can Google always determine that a backlink is a paid link?
I was wondering also what you think about the product [---product name removed by timethief ----], which is a way to build backlinks from high rank software directories.
HUJIKAIMOTO UNIGAWA
June 17, 2010
I am very very difficult to get visitors who are very solid
there we were,,,
there may be a solution to it all,,,
thanks!!
timethief
June 18, 2010
To attract an initial traffic flow that will hopefully convert into regular readers and subscribers, new bloggers who have good writing skills need to focus on:
1. Learning and understanding SEO (search engine optimization) and optimizing blog post titles, sub-titles, and keywords.
2. Mastering use of the blogging platform that matches their goals and is easy to use.
3. Choosing a niche and staying with it.
Interesting content is an attractor and in blogging content is king but promotion is queen. There are 10 standard tips to get traffic:
(1) You need to have expertise in a niche.
(2) You need to know how to write very well.
(3) You need to verify your blog with search engines and structure a reader friendly and search engine friendly blog by learning how to apply basic SEO techniques.
(4) You need to build an archive of high quality original content and keep adding to it.
(5) You need to update your content frequently with new posts in order to hold reader interest.
(6) You need to learn how to promote your content effectively through social media, social networks and RSS feed sites, thereby encouraging other bloggers to backlink to your posts.
(7) You need to comment, comment, comment on other blogs in the same niche and backlinks to related posts in posts of your own.
(8) You need to form relationships with other bloggers and create a blog centered community around your own blog.
(9) You need to encourage your readers to comment on your posts and respond to their comments ASAP after approving them.
(10) You need to participate in blog carnivals in your niche and become a guest blogger on blogs with a higher PageRank then your own blog has.
HUJIKAIMOTO UNIGAWA
July 2, 2010
SEO is a science, of making your site rank higher in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Position). There are several factors, that influence your rank. First, and very important – internal site’s structure. There are several rules, that have to be met – otherwise search engines will consider a site amateur/spammy/useless and index it badly (and in some cases might even completely drop it from their database).
After some of those rules are met – search engines apply another variable to the site’s ranking – backlinks weight and count. Perhaps there are more factors, affecting site’s ranking, but those are a very well kept secret (for those exactly same reasons – so that SEO people won’t be able to affect site’s “natural” score)
What are backlinks?
If site “A” has link to site “B” – we can say, that site “B” has a backlink from “A”. If “A” is an authority site,it has more weight in search engine final decision about the rank position. The idea behind this mechanism, is that if site “A” refers to site “B”, it probably considers it as a source of good information.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
timethief
July 2, 2010
Thanks I am aware of everything you have said and have multiple posts in this blog on the topic. Here are links to a few of them:
Basic SEO elements for bloggers
Blogging: Learning SEO is worth the effort
Understanding Reciprocal and Non-Reciprocal Links
Understanding Backlinks
Natural linking strategy for bloggers
Deep link posts: Bring your readers back again and again
Rank High in Google Without PR & Backlinks
July 3, 2010
What? Ranking in Google search results without page rank or backlinks?
Yes! Sounds hard but it’s true and you can do this. To understand what i mean to say by saying “Rank high in Google without PR or backlinks”, first of all lets understand what actually search engine is and what they do.
In simple words, search engines index the web pages available all around the world in their own database related to some keywords or key phrase. When you search for the particular phrase or keyword, it will show you the latest results indexed in database and related to that keyword or phrase.
Now the problem is here, Major search engines like Google, yahoo, msn are fighting hard to be at the top in serving relevant results to users, and at the other end, internet is growing at the lightning speed and thousands of websites and new web pages are coming on each day, which made search engines difficult to index all the data in their own database.
So what the search engine will do here?
Google will index only most relavent and unique content in it’s database to reduce the size of database, and will neglect all spam, duplicate and not much of important content from Google’s index. To check my word just visit the Google and search for any keyword. Let us take an example and search for “SEO Tips” in Google without double quotes……………..
timethief
July 3, 2010
Hello,
Thanks for the visit.