Is it a good idea to put a directory on my ecommerce site?

Like www.domain.com/directory

I have looked at doing this and I could require recip links that could be tailored any way that I would like and point to my primary domain with specific anchor text.

Do you think it is a good idea or does the outbound links bring the site down even though they are on a sepearte page of the site?

I think its a great idea...any way to increase your backlinks is good thing.

I just didn't know if it would have any negative effect because of the outbound links even though they are on a seperate URL from the home page.

Even it ends up not being useful, it will not hurt you for sure. But make sure that you get enough links to add to your dir. It doesnt look good when you go to any dir and it shows only 5/10 links shouwing.

First of all, tms, your advice is completely wrong. Totally, completely, utterly wrong. How can a useless directory that detracts from the overall image of the store not hurt him?

Oh wait...this is the SEO Talk forum, where directories only have SEO benefit and no user benefit. My bad.

onebrady, look at it this way: if it weren't for search engines, is there a reason to add a directory to your site, one that would send potential customers away as they go to other sites and forget to buy from you?

Not only that, big G (among others) has been cracking down pretty hard on reciprocal links, due to the inherently useless nature of them. It's even a long-standing joke in this forum that, if one of the people who knows better says or does something wrong, we banish them to the Relevant Link Exchange forum for three days.

This is an idea that can do no good and can only do harm.

Originally Posted by onebrady

I just didn't know if it would have any negative effect because of the outbound links even though they are on a seperate URL from the home page.

Why would outbound links have a negative effect? Are you planning to link to every spammy neighborhood on the web? Is it a directory only for gambling, porn, and spammasters?

The directory is now up for a try www.pdqwholesale.com/directory

I sell mostly tiffany style lamps and the directory is based only on home and garden related sites. I have strict control over the accepted URLs and would not put any directly competing stores in my directory.

I do believe that it is something that the customers to my site might find interesting if put together correctly ( I am still working on the overall design ).

But, since this is the SEO forum my question to you and the part that I am not sure about is this: If the index page carries a PR3 and the new directory carries a PR0 is it possible to detract from the PR of my index page.

I also don't expect the PR of the directory to increase dramaticly because I am sending the recip links to my index page but I am dragging down the PR of the Directory because it is only pages of outbound links.

How could the directory hurt, take away, or detract from your main page? And where did you get the idea that it might?

onebrady, you're not understanding this the way you should be (personally, I blame the Digital Pointless/V7N/prevailing SEO crowd).

Again, why do you care if you're dragging down the PageRank of the directory? Every directory faces the same "problem". Does that stop Yahoo!? JoeAnt? Dumbass...err...DMOZ? No...they just go ahead and list the things that are useful. If you're going to do that, then that's fine, but it doesn't sound like you are. Why do the sites need to reciprocate? Why can't a site that's worth it be listed without requiring the reciprocal link?

PageRank is only useful as a tiebreak factor in search...and the directory in this case won't be something that would drive a lot of potential search traffic to your site to begin with. And if you're trying to market the directory as a useful resource based on perceived SEO benefit, you've still got the wrong logic in mind.

I'm going to spell this out as plainly as I can...if you're going to have a directory, make it as useful as your users as possible and stop thinking about the SEO "benefits"/"penalties".

Ok Adam, point taken. I think that this is an issue of over thinking an issue and I believe you point that out well in your previous post.

I guess I have a tendancy to look at almost everything that I do to the site with search rankings in mind so that I can increase revenues by driving traffic.

That type of thinking can detract from overall user experience and after focusing on all of the SEO information out there one can become focused on altering the wrong things on their site only to get better rankings and not enhancing the customer shopping experience.

Adam knows his stuff.

My site isn't a directory by any means, but I have a links page. None of the sites on it asked for a link, I'm sure none of the people who run them have any idea who I am. They're a collection of web sites that people who like mine would be interested in. Mine is a photo site, so you'll find Ansel Adams, but you might find people you aren't familiar with.

Google gives it a PR 2, for a links page! It should be worthless. There's one link to it from my site, and now a second in this thread, because I think it's a good example of what a directory should be. After I added Project Confluence, a handful of people have come back to my site, starting at the links page, and then poked around to other pages. People who like my site enjoy travel, nature, and photography, so when I find something unique in one of these areas, my viewers will probably like it, too.