#1 (permalink)

Do you guys still believe in submission to free directories?

These have become the biggest link farms with thousands of links and zero content.
its time to move on and spend some money on some good quality paid directories than still the traditional method of link building.

How many agree with me?

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#2 (permalink)

u r right chetan ... free dirs are filled with link farms mostly ... so its better to get quality links by spending some $$ for it

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#3 (permalink)

I'm sure most of us who run paid directories agree with you. The free directories have too many outgoing, low quality links to be useful. Plus, they essentially have duplicate lists of links because they are listed by the same submission companies.

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#4 (permalink)

I find that I get the same amount of hits from paid and not-paid directories. Most link farms don't ever seem to work because all people are going to them for the same reason "to advertise their website", not look for someone elses.

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#5 (permalink)

Paid directories got google slapped recently so they're not much better IMHO.

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#6 (permalink)

what about specialized free directories?
a regional one for example.
as long as they keep their links relevant, i beleive it's worth it

p.s not talking about the one in my sig

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#7 (permalink)

Hey, hey fellows watch you language please…
Not every free Directory collects spammy links or let garbage seep in it index. If you think DMOZ is hard on spam then think again because you never tried yet our Directory.

Granted if you are talking about freshly baked free directories then you’re right, they don’t care who gets in because they need links, but any directory older than 3 - 4 years won’t tolerate spam Period.

We went from almost 500,000 links to 50,000 in the past 2 years removing anything that bear a resemblance to spam and continue doing that on daily bases. Spam is spam is spam even if people submit to us paying links and... guess what... we reject them too.

So, free or paid directory label has nothing to do with pragmatic qualities of given directory whereas assessment should be made rather on how it’s run, for how long and by content that directory has to offer


fastreplies

#8 (permalink)

I agree with fastreplies. It's not so much about whether or not a directory is free or paid as it is about the quality of the directory itself. Just like it is for websites in general. Some are good and some not so much.

I do think there are far too many useless directories out there, but that doesn't mean it's garbage just because it's free.

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#9 (permalink)

Good points there fastreplies, but you still have to agree that most of the free directories(except a few about which their owner care something) have become a load of spam links. Isn't it?

And paid directories slapped by google, its not on all the paid directories. There are directories with wholesome content and charging for review, those are still in wonders.

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#10 (permalink)

Both free and paid are okay. Free directories can have a positive effect on your site, you can add your site to free directories to gain backlinks.

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#11 (permalink)

Absolutely and I won’t exaggerate if I say thousands of them in past year or two and yes maybe only 50 or less directories that still around who cares enough about content they are adding to their indexes but as I said only because they can afford to do so.


fastreplies

#12 (permalink)

I don't bother submitting to them, but on the other hand, it can't hurt....

#13 (permalink)

Now when you agree to the fact, you should also agree that free directories dont add up content and are crap and controversially paid directories are better, the ones which add content to their directories

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#14 (permalink)

I wish you stopped putting in one basket Free Top and mushroom farm Directories. I said enough about this subject in my posts and I don’t care to continue discuss this any longer.

Now lets talk about paid directories.
The only edge they have over Free Directories, their owners get less spam load.
Other then that:

• There is no real benefit for Internet public,
• As a rule they have very few links and small index thus not to much to offer
• Paid Directories IMO on the same level as newly baked Directories because they will grab any garbage as long as they get paid for inclusion

I don’t say that you shouldn’t charge for inclusion but if you ask me, I would prefer directories that offer both Free and Paid inclusion therefore providing better service to Internet community

fastreplies

#15 (permalink)

I guess having a backlink from hunderds of web directories which are seo friendly, indexed in search engines and manually edited can be a great source of backlinks. It's like hunderds of backlinks to your website.

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