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Back in September we made a few changes to our web directory eWebPages.org related to our submission form and I’m quite pleased with the results after 6 months. The quality of submissions have improved somewhat, and I no longer find myself constantly arguing with webmasters about titles and descriptions that are edited prior to acceptance.
Hahaha. Wishful thinking.
They’re just Sitelinks.
They have nothing to do with the status of any web site and everything to do with Google’s search results and their users - the surfers conducting searches.
Webmasters would like to think that the occurrence of Sitelinks bestows a certain status upon their humble web site and that some how, in some way, they’re directly responsible.
Arrogance?
Ignorance?
Maybe a little of both. 
What is Directory Spongiform Encephalopathy?
Directory Spongiform Encephalopathy is a common degenerative web directory disorder characterized by enlarged “directory” sub categories that give the directory a bloated or “spongy” appearance.
Research indicates that DSEs are caused by abnormal, excessive submission to and acceptance of useless web directories. The obsessive feeding of directories to directories mirrors the practice of feeding livestock slaughterhouse waste to livestock under the guise of milk replacers, calf starters and feed supplements.
Feeding ruminants to ruminants resulted in Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow Disease), and the corresponding practice by directory owners will yield similar, fatal results.
Symptoms of DSE vary, but commonly include degenerative internal PR over successive updates, a gradual reduction of SERPs and the eventual domain quarantine (removal from index).
DSEs tend to progress rapidly and usually culminate in death (zero PR) over the course of a few months. There is currently no treatment that will halt the progression of DSE, and attempts to treat the symptoms with the injection of additional citations yield no results.
A few clinical trials are underway in an attempt at finding a cure.
Interesting concept.
You hear mention of this phrase quite often during discussions about web directories. It’s often said that you can judge a directory by its editorial integrity (or lack thereof).
Wikipedia gives the following definition for integrity:
Integrity is the basing of one’s actions on an internally consistent framework of principles. Depth of principles and adherence of each level to the next are key determining factors. One is said to have integrity to the extent that everything he does and believes is based on the same core set of values. While those values may change, it is their consistency with each other and with the person’s actions that determine his integrity.
Something that has really caught my attention is that most general topic web directories promoted at popular webmaster forums primarily feature other directories.
Editors and owners are quick to assure you that they have integrity while fraternal members slip in the side door without the least bit of scrutiny. Web sites that feature little if any content are quickly rejected with insolence but web directories with few listings are proudly accepted.
Directory owners suggest that submissions with keyword stuffed titles or improper capitalization of descriptions will not be accepted, yet listings such as the following are all too common:
Firefox SEO Friendly Paid Web Directory
FireFox Directory Add Your Site Get PageRank Search Engine Optimization [SEO] Search Engine Frendly [SEF] Directory Search.
How can a directory owner think they have editorial integrity when accepting such a submission (especially if there was a fee involved)?
Is it me, or is it becoming easier to distinguish the link pimps from the directory owners?
Back in July, we submitted a site to DMOZ. We walked through the steps of selecting a category, writing a title and description that might be accepted and submitting.
From looking at the last update date at the bottom of the Home - Home Improvement - Furniture category, our suggested site was accepted within a month of submission:
Furniture Care Tips - Short articles on care and maintenance for various types of furniture.
The title was accepted as submitted, and the description was edited. While I may feel that my suggested description was the better of the two, the listed description offers a brief overview about the sites content.
Did following the guidelines expedite our listing? Probably not. At best, we submitted the site at the right time. Just before an editor took an interest in reviewing the submissions within the category we submitted to.
Are we seeing an improvement in the search engine rankings or traffic as a result? Hardly, I’m not seeing a single referral from DMOZ for the month of November so far.
Do we still recommend that you submit your sites to DMOZ? Sure. Just don’t have any expectations when you do. Best of luck with your submissions.
Our New Webmaster Portal and an Invitation to the Private Beta
Shortly after that day in March when we had to take the “link:” operator offline, a small team was formed in Redmond. Its singular focus: to build the next-generation set of tools, content and resources for SEO professionals and webmasters (and get “link:” back in your hands). Creatively named Webmaster Portal (we’re really good at marketing), it will be a single, friendly place to find all tools and information relating to Live Search SEO. Initially we’ll support these scenarios:
- Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSNBot is effectively crawling and indexing your site
- Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
- Statistics about your website
- Consolidation of content submission resources
- New content and community resources
It’s expected to go Live later this year, and in the mean time, Live is looking for participants in their private beta program.
Check out Live Search’s Weblog for information on how to express your interest in participating in the beta program.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Google Inc. has inked a deal with Seth MacFarlane to create animated content for its AdSense netwpork featuring new characters.
MacFarlane, Symone click with AdSense
Google Inc. and Media Rights Capital on Thursday unveiled a deal that will see Google distribute exclusive original digital content from Seth MacFarlane and Raven-Symone across Web sites in its AdSense content network.
The Open Directory Project, aka DMOZ is a directory that has intrigued webmasters from the very beginning.
Claims that a listing within this directory is a must if you want to rank well in the search engines is still being perpetuated, and the less someone knows, the more important this really seems.
After you’ve been around for awhile, you soon realize that getting into DMOZ is not what it was touted to be, nor have you sky-rocketed in the search engines as a result of it.
It’s just another link. It might have some authority factor - the listing is human edited prior to inclusion and the search engines to take this into account. How much emphasis is placed on this is relatively unknown, but most feel it’s diminishing as search engine algorithms evolve and they become less reliant on the human factor.
It doesn’t hurt to submit a site for inclusion and may actually help your site a little. So let’s look at the process and submit a site to the Open Directory Project.
The site we’ve chosen to submit is Furniture Care Tips (furniturecaretips.com) and from reviewing their submission guidelines, it appears that this site meets the standards for inclusion. It’s not an affiliate site or over-run with advertising and it provides rich, unique content that’s generally not found on other sites (we don’t know about the scrapers so we tend to generalize).
Jeff Behrendt recently offered some great advice over at Search Engine Journal in 7 Costly Mistakes Webmasters Make About Web Directories.
One of the points that really should be emphasized is the mistake of not varying your anchor text and descriptions:
Costly Mistake #5 - Not varying anchor text and descriptions. From what I’ve seen, a lot of submitters seem to use the same anchor text and description for all of their directory submissions. My editors spend a large amount of time re-writing this. A good way to set up a red flag with Google is suddenly to gain a lot of links to your site with the exact same anchor text and the exact same surrounding text. Ideally, all of your directory submissions should use unique wording. At the very least, have several versions of anchor text and descriptions that you use when submitting to directories.
Consider the possible consequence of replicating the same listing hundreds of times over (think duplicate content/supplemental results) and it’s easy to see how you’re contributing to the probability that the listing/link will provide you with little if any benefit.
Many complain that submitting to free directories is a waste of time as they don’t provide any boost or juice, yet they don’t try to maximize the potential when submitting.
Reading comments and posts across a variety of webmaster forums I’m intrigued by what I’ll call a misunderstanding of Supplemental results for a web directory.
You see posts from directory owners inviting comparisons of the number of Supplemental results or the percentage of pages labeled Supplemental. You’ll also see posts stating that some web directories have more pages in the Supplemental index than they have cached and indexed in the main index.
I find that it’s difficult to make a sound assessment of a web directory based solely on the number of results returned when querying Google for Supplemental pages. The number of results returned can be deceiving, and through a simple misunderstanding it’s easy to get the impression that it may not be worthwhile to have a listing in such a directory or that the directory owner is just not doing a good job.
I’m sure that we’re well versed on what a Supplemental page is, and also that these pages are likely to receive little if any traffic due to the limited exposure they’ll receive.
Before condemning a web directory because of the number of Supplemental pages, it’s a good idea to review the results and better understand why Google is returning those pages as Supplemental.
Arctic Blue is a fresh, crisp and simple 2 column free template for PHPLD web directories.
Fast loading, with the built in option of adding advertising with thumbnails below the main category structure or ads in the R/H column.
The R/H column also provides a heading for your own resources, a great place to place important external links or even internal links to a blog, your contact information or a company information page.
Available for the most popular versions of PHPLD directory script.
Downloads:
PHPLD v2.1.2
PHPLD v3.1
PHPLD v3.2
Here’s another web directory that’s of interest to me; Trincas.org Web Directory. I was checking the search results recently for the term web directory and noticed that Trincas.org is slowly moving on up, and is now on the second page, usually in the 12th or 13th spot.
It has a nice new design and is well categorized, with approximately 425 listings in their data base. I’ve noticed that several listings were added by the directory administrators, which to me is a good sign that the directory will not become just another link farm.
It’s a fairly new directory, just under a year old. It should be around for some time to come and is definitely worth a look if you’re wanting to gain a quality directory listing.
PageRank 5
SEOmoz PageStrength 5
Alexa 99K
Yahoo Backlinks 40K
Pages Indexed 1390
Pretty good statistics that are likely to improve as I’ve started to notice directory listings, new links, and blog posts with positive comments about Trincas Web Directory.
Submission fees range from $20.00 for a permanent Standard Listing with 4 additional links to $35.00 annually for a Featured Listing which includes 10 additional links to your product pages or other important or popular site resources.
With the current pricing I’ve been noticing, this one is definitely a gem as we consider it under priced. Submissions are processed promptly; our listing was approved in less than a day.
Our overall experience was positive and we definitely recommend that you consider submitting now before the submission fee increases.
To follow up on my previous post about picking the right directories I thought I would provide a good example of a paid business web directory that you should consider.
Biz-Dir.co.uk is a Business Directory started in November 2006 and currently has approximately 368 listings, of which 40 are Featured Listings. These listings appear in 134 well focused business related categories covering topics ranging from Advertising to Wholesale.
The manually reviewed listings appear in relevant categories and are provided with an individual details page such as the one for eWebPages, and it’s easy to see that besides a quality listing you’re likely to receive a few visitors as well.
Checking their Latest Links you’ll find some quality additions with seo friendly titles and descriptions. It’s easy to determine who and what from the listings and the descriptions provided are for the directory visitors and not search engine spiders.
It’s also easy to see that the site is promoted and maintained by checking some basic stats:
PageRank 6
SEOmoz PageStrength 5.5
Alexa 98K
Yahoo Backlinks 28K
Pages Indexed 644
The individual details pages were updated a short while back and now provide optional links for added exposure of your important internal pages. A regular listing has the option of including 3 deeplinks and the featured listing has the option of including up to 5 deeplinks.
Reasonable annual pricing ranging from $15.00 for a basic reciprocated listing to $50.00 for a featured listing with 5 deeplinks should fit most web site owners budgets and not break the bank for a quality listing.
I suggest that you give them a look - I’m off to see if I can upgrade our basic listing to a Featured listing. 
Seems that with the scramble for inbound links little if any regard is given to the quality of a general web directory where the link is coming from. Submitting blindly may not be in your best interest.
I personally think the quality and calibre of a directory listing is more important than quantity. So how can you determine if a directory has the potential to become a quality Internet resource and not end up as just another hyperlink landfill?
There are a few easy steps you can take to judge the quality, or lack of in the smaller general web directories available today. It’s all about editorial integrity.
Most directories offer a site search function. Try searching for keywords associated with sites that you’d prefer to not be listed with. Pharmacy and gaming affiliates, adult entertainment, illegal products and services; you get the general idea.
Search for individual words such as pharmacy or popular prescription drug names, online gambling phrases and games, adult entertainment terms and phrases to see what kind of results are returned.
Look at the latest links or new additions. Review the listing titles and descriptions. Keyword titles and lists of keyword phrases in place of proper descriptions like the example below is a clear indication that anything and everything goes. You can almost count on one hand how many seconds it took for the editor to review this submission; if it was a paid listing I’ll bet the directory owner spent more time verifying the payment.
Bad Credit Car Loan
Bad Credit Car Loan, car loan for people with bad credit, car loans, car credit, vehicle financing, instant credit approval, car loan bad credit, get bad credit car loans, subprime loans, bankruptcy, slowpays, bad credit, no credit, bad credit car loans, automobile loans for people with bad credit, bad credit car financing, car financing bad credit, car lenders, poor credit loans, bad credit auto loans, auto loans for bad credit, auto loans
Listings such as the one above are pretty useless; you have to wonder how much traffic a listing such as this generates. It’s also a reflection on the quality of a directory.
Do yourself a favor; avoid the temptation of a free link when you know that the quality of the link is not the best. It’ll improve your inbound link profile.
Miho Creations and Dirsensei have released their latest template for Site-Sift directory script entitled Yellow Stone Theme.Sponsored by DirectoryDump and eWebPages, the latest theme also has an available Wordpress theme for your directory blog.
A nice three column design, Yellow Stone Park is the latest in a series of themes from Miho Creations and Dirsensei.
Yeah, I’ve about had my fill of the crappy link exchange offers and the webmasters looking to get over on others for a link.
It’s seems some are so desperate for a link they’re willing to defraud others to promote their garbage sites. Here’s a typical example from today:
From: Richard Bean
Date: June 01, 2007 9:02am
To: Us
Subject: Get quality PR 4 home page link (Link Exchange request)
Dear WebMaster,
We are looking quality link partners for our site and your site http://www.linkbook.org is ideal for the purpose.
We will add your link on the home page of http://www.ucepnepal.org/ (Page Rank 4)
Please add our link at home page or a good Page Rank internal page (not a link page) of your site.
Here is our link information:
Title: Richard Bean
URL: http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm
Descriptions:
Makeup tools assists in applying the makeup in the correct and precise form.
Or copy paste the following code:
a href=”http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm” mce_href=”http://www.beautyfeast.com/makeup-tools/makeup-tools-main.htm”
target=”_blank”> Makeup Tools looks shabby, funky and rough and has cool cuts and is very popular among young guys and girls in the present world.
Please let me know once our link is up and and we will add your link back in 24 hours.
Regards
Richard Bean P.S.: If you want us to link to your site first please reply to this email with add first in the subject and place where you will place our link.
Wow! They’re offering to place our link on the homepage of a PageRank 4 site for a link to another site. Some webmasters must think that others are idiots.
For one, ucepnepal.org is a dropped domain with toolbar PageRank. You can look at Archive.org and see what this site used to look like when it was set up for the Underprivileged Children’s Educational Programs (UCEP) Nepal.
So now some webmaster/promoter has grabbed up a dropped domain to use to obtain links to a crappy made for AdSense site at BeautyFeast.com. Either for a client or themselves.
You can look at the Whois to see that the owner of the dropped domain is not the same person owning the MFA site.
Registrant Name:Vaibhav Kakkar
Registrant Street1:H. No. 709
Registrant Street2:Sector 31
Registrant City:Gurgaon
Registrant State/Province:Haryana
Registrant Postal Code:122001
Registrant Country:IN
email: vaibhavkakkar@gmail.com
vijayowl@gmail.com is the email address that “Richard Bean” used to send us this crappy link exchange offer; maybe he thought by using a made up name we’d have more interest?
The suggested title makes no sense and the code is incomplete.
What’s really sad is that the owner of the MFA site is likely paying for link development. Hey buddy, you get what you pay for.
Another free theme for Site-Sift directory owners has been released by Miho Creations. Sponsored by DirectoryDump.com and LinkBook.org directories, the newest theme features a three column layout and easy navigation.
As the Site-Sift directory script continues to grow in popularity it was just a matter of time before free, custom templates would be available for download.
Developed by Miho Creations and Dirsensei, the first free template has finally been released. The Book Page three column theme provides two outer columns for optional advertising and pre-templated pages for your directory guidelines, contact info, disclaimers and sponsorship information.
Sponsored by Aviva and eWebPages.org directories, the Book Page theme is a great option for Site-Sift script directory owners who were forced to have a template custom coded if they wanted a different look.
Enjoy, and be sure to keep an eye out for more free Site-Sift directory themes from Miho Creations.
A free Orange Bloom theme from PostDotCom and eWebPages for phpLD v2.1 and v3.1 is now available.
I was reading a discussion over at Digital Point Forums today regarding the maturity of the directory maket.
I don’t think the directory market has reached “maturity” as much as it has attained saturation, especially within the webmaster/seo community. The majority of web directories I’m familiar with are relatively unknown outside of these small circles. It’s not surprising, given that the majority of those directories are targeting webmasters/seo’s within such communities.
It’s likely that there could be a downside if directory owners don’t remove their blinders and get outside the box.
I’m willing to guess that the majority of those directories share a common footprint that may be easily distinguishable to SE’s. Free script, free template, free category dump - you’ve struck out your first at bat.
Add to that forum announcements as the primary extent of promotion which leads to a database that’s all too common with those preceding it. Think about how many directories you’ve submitted to where you see the same listings over and over again. The majority of these directories rely exclusively on user submissions and to me, it’s doubtful that these indexes will provide any useful benefit to those listed or for their real visitors, if any.
It’s not surprising that some SEOs consider directories to be crap or find directory marketing to be boring. The future of directories is still not that bright for most.
As a web directory owner, I guess it’s helpful for me to keep in mind that reputation and trust are earned, not mimiced.
Yes, it’s April Fools’ Day once again!
Project Teaspoon
“That’s what we call it here at Google, anyway. What you’ll call it is a godsend: free wireless broadband throughout your home, a host of optional breakthrough applications — all with just one quick, easy self-install. Learn more about Google TiSP (beta) today.”
TiSP: Going with the Flow
“Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.”
Maybe I should list them in Link Book Web Directory under Internet Access Providers or maybe even Home Improvement?
Enjoy!
Are no more for the time being as they have decided to disable a few of the advanced operators such as link:, linkdomain:, and inurl:.
For the time being, you can still access the results via HotBot.com if you are interested. 
We are flattered, but…
For those of you who use some of the advanced query syntax in our search engine such as link:, linkdomain: and inurl:, you may have noticed that this functionality has been recently turned off. We have been seeing broad use of these features by legitimate users but unfortunately also what appears to be mass automated usage for data mining. So for now, we have made the tough call to block all queries with these operators.
We are doing our best to get this back online as soon as possible in a manner that allows folks that use this functionality for real queries. We have a few good ideas up our sleeve on how to enable this, but want to make sure we are making the right changes that will give you the functionality you want and all of our customers the experience they deserve. Our apologies and thank you for being patient. Keep an eye on our blog for updates.
Eytan Seidman
Lead Program Manager, Live Search
A new project we’re overseeing in an attempt to improve the overall quality of the index as well as it’s visibility and interest is the Link Book Web Directory.
It’s a general topic web directory which currently utilizes a popular directory script and a free template. Starting out as a free web directory had its pitfalls, and one of the most noticeable problems we’ve encountered is webmasters trying to take advantage of a fresh index by submitting anything and everything anywhere and everywhere.
The number of multiple submissions of the same URL utilizing a different title or description is interesting, and has given me a different view of some of the webmasters I’m acquainted with. We’re running some simple SQL queries to locate and delete the multiple listings; the worse offender has had almost 40 listings for his site(s).
Sites with little content such as eBay and Amazon stores, one page eBook sites, affiliate driven sites, pharmaceutical sales and adult entertainment affiliates are being removed. MFA sites are slowly getting weeded out as well, as these sites offer little useful original content.
I don’t see that this may have been a problem as I seriously doubt there was any harm to having those sites listed. We hope that we’re able to have the majority of these sites removed before the new pages are fully indexed.
Anyway, a new logo is in the works to go with a customized template from Shabu Anower at OSDesigner.net. It’s a variation of the StoneFlash template, which is simple and functional. We’re looking to place the emphasis on our content - your listing.
URL rewrite wasn’t in use, so that was one of the first changes, and we’re renaming the category paths and hope these new pages get indexed and the old pages drop out within a reasonable amount of time.
Some titles and descriptions will be updated to conform to basic guidelines, some of the titles and descriptions are nothing but hype and of little use to some one browsing the directory. If anyone is unhappy after we edit their listing, please feel free to contact us and we’ll have it permanently removed from the index.
We will be manually adding quality sites in categories to provide our visitors with a positive experience, I know how much I dislike using a directory with few or poor quality listings.
We’re also accepting user submitted sites which are subject to a nominal review fee. Featured Listings are available for web sites owners who want the maximum exposure that a directory listing can provide.
Please feel free to stop by to check out Link Book Web Directory. We hope you notice the positive changes we’re making.
We all have a list of favorite directories we use to jump start our latest projects or clients sites; established web directories such as DMOZ, Yahoo!, BOTW and Business.com are usually at the top of any serious marketer’s campaign.
A number of popular second tier directories that come to mind include Wow Directory, Skaffe and GoGuides, these directories provide quality indexes consisting of manually reviewed and edited web sites, and confer some measure of trust.
While we’re all impressed with or have some respect for the directories mentioned above, one other directory has really caught my attention: Aviva Directory. Aviva is a rapidly growing quality directory, and in my opinion will move ahead of some of the well known second tier directories by years end.
Besides accepting user submitted sites for a nominal annual fee, Aviva also adds quality, authoritative listings and will provide a positive user experience as the size of their index grows, which has just passed 9K listings across a little over 1100 categories.
A small editorial staff is now onboard building out new and existing categories and their hard work is being noticed. Just take a look at their Latest Additions. Good job, folks!
Many directory owners whom rely strictly on user submissions to build their directories may eventually find themselves behind the eight ball, with Aviva on the other side chalking up for another round. Recruiting an editorial staff was a positive move that will pay dividends in the future.
Many self taught webmasters are too easily influenced by PageRank™, and unknowingly equate a directory listing’s value primarily on an outdated graphical display of a browser add on. While they may be easily entertained, I’m more impressed with the growth of Aviva in a manner that will provide a permanent benefit to the Internet community.
For example, eWebPages.org was recently voted as the PHPLD directory with the best content for the month of February, but it’s quite evident that if Aviva was eligible, they wouldn’t have had a chance.
Aviva definitely provides a quality link and citation for listed sites, and should be a consideration for your link development
While those familiar with Aviva’s history are impressed with the ongoing marketing campaign and accomplishments thus far, it’s hard to not see the bigger picture and the true meaning of “Aviva Delivers!”
It’s all in the details.
If you haven’t heard of Directory Dump Web Directory, I’m sure it won’t be much longer before you do. While the average Internet directory is satisfied with offering a categorized data base of annotated listings, Directory Dump is continually refining the way they present their content.
The owner is always looking for ways to set Directory Dump apart from the average directory, and has succeeded in several ways.
The LIVE! Stats displayed in the R/H column give you a clear indication of the traffic they receive; both daily and monthly. Below the LIVE! stats are the categories most recently visited.
The Popular Categories listed in the L/H column show the most visited categories, and there are related live news feeds for each category.
All of the category listings display a thumbnail image of the site when you mouse over the listing which gives their visitors a nice preview before visiting the site.
The submission form has some unique features not found on most directories utilizing a similar script; each listing type provides a preview and the option to list a RSS feed is also available for Featured listings.
The newest upgrade provides Website Statistics for each listing on the details page; you can see how many citations a listed web site has from .edu and .gov sites, Technorati links and del.icio.us links.
Also included are DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory listings, and some Google statistics; the number of indexed pages, links, related pages and cache status. There are also categories for Wikipedia citations and the current Alexa ranking.
A good example of the details pages is seen here for a new Internet Resource Guide, eWebPages.
Setting themselves ahead of your average phpLD directory has paid off, as they were recently included in DMOZ’s Web Directories category.
Google has recently updated their webmaster tools to allow you to see a larger sample of your Google backlinks beyond what the link: operator listed. The data is much more comprehensive and you can sort and even download the information.
The links are currently divided into 2 categories, external and internal links. External links are links on pages other than your site or domain. Internal links are those within your own site or domain.
Google will not reveal all of the external links indexed for your site, but they will reveal a much larger total than the link: operator reveals:
Google knows about more links than the total we show, but the overall fraction of links we show is much, much larger than the link: command currently offers.
For more information you can visit Google’s Webmaster Central Blog and check out Discover your links. Vanessa Fox offers a post about Who links to your site at the official Google blog also.
I’ve a feeling this one will keep webmasters busy for awhile.
So there’s about 2 weeks left in the DirectoryContest.com contest and many of the participants are scurrying for that last push to try and get their sites to the top of Google’s results on February 6, 2007 at 10:00am PST.
I’m seeing quite a bit of link purchasing still going on in an attempt to outrank others at the finish line. Some of the top sites have up to 17,000 links pointing to their entry page, which is a detail page for the contest site. Amazing.
It’ll be difficult to determine just which directories provide the best overall value when this is finished as it appears to have turned into another SEO contest.
The current standings in Google’s search results for the term “directorycontest.com” are as follows:
Trincas.org
Ask-Dir.com
Gii.in
Global-Weblinks.com
eWebPages.org
Index-it.net
Romow.com
Web1Directory.com
LinksArena.com
HotBizDir.com
What’s been interesting is watching the SERPs shift and following some of the trails set down by the contest participants.
Looking at the results it’s easy to see that the predominant factor is not the strength of the directory, but rather the promotional efforts of the directory owners.
eWebPages.org is a relatively new general web directory, launched on August 1, 2006. The editors are hoping to build a genuine quality reference resource and decided it would better serve their clients to concentrate their efforts on improving the quality and functionality of the directory.
Several new mods to the original script have been incorporated or are planned for the near future that will benefit the directory visitors, editors and submitters.
The listing detail pages now include additional web site resources, providing increased visibility for the most important pages of a site. Directory visitors can go directly to important pages within a site without having to navigate down from the homepage, as seen on the NASCAR details page.
All in all, it’s been very interesting to watch the SERPs and web pages in the results. We wish all of the contestants the best of luck in the final 2 weeks.
So there’s been a slight preview of the PageRank toolbar export on a few of the 216.239.51.* data centers today and unsurprisingly, it didn’t last very long.
The usual discussion forum buzz and jubilation was evident at DigitalPoint and included the usual comments regarding the brief glimpse of the updated values.
Pixel envy is still rampant, and there’s quite a bit of disappointment being expressed over the lack of a visual display in relation to the link development efforts of some.
Others are already trying to cash in on the glimpse and are advertising link sales based on this glimpse or glitch, whichever you’d like to call it.
Always being curious about the future I’ve been pondering Google’s efforts to make it much more difficult for webmasters attempting to reverse engineer the algo, manipulate PageRank and the SERPs.
I’m guessing that in the future, Google will make a few changes to how certain information is presented, such as the toolbar PageRank display, search results for commands used by a small minority (webmasters) in an effort to reduce spam.
What I’m guessing we’ll soon see:
A variation in Toolbar PageRank values across data centers. It will be more difficult to acertain the most recent PageRank toolbar values if there are various values presented simultaneously. Rather difficult to broker links based on PageRank when values aren’t consistent.
A limitation on the total results displayed for advanced search operators such as link:yoursite.com. I’ll go one further and suggest that Google will limit the number of results for advanced search operators to 1000, regardless of the actual number of results. Expect to see Results 1- 10 of about 1000 linking to yoursite.com in the blue status bar regardless of the actual total sometime in the near future. ;)
DirectoryContest.com is a unique contest set up to determine the strength of general web directories. Started by Mike Dammann, the final rankings will be determined by Google’s search results for the search term directorycontest.com on on February 6th 2007, 10 AM PST.
Web directory owners can participate in this contest by simply adding a link to the DirectoryContest.com blog as a Standard or Featured listing. The link can’t be a site-wide link, or located on the homepage of the directory.
The listing should not appear in a new category named for the contest, and the title should be one of the three titles below:
Directory Contest
DirectoryContest.com
Directory Contest - DirectoryContest.com
The top 10 directories will win prizes, and cash prizes will be awarded to the top 3 directories.
Good luck to all the participants!
You tell me.
Directory Ranking is supposedly an attempt to rank or grade the quality or importance of links from general web directories based on advanced search operator results (back link commands) at the primary search engines; Google, Yahoo! and MSN.
In the opening post on a popular webmaster forum where this project was announced, it’s stated that participating directories should list this neutral site as they would any other normal listing:
“Every directory that participates must list this site as they would do for normal listings. Then using these backlink commands at google, yahoo and msn we sort the links ordered by descending link power.
If you do not agree with any of this metrics you can use your own, the objective of this site is to create a neutral resource that enables you to do that.”
At best, this appears to be classic link bait to transfer link juice to their main site; which, predictably, is a web directory. Why else would you need to link from the neutral resource back to your own directory which is participating?
“If you have a directory you only have to list this site as you would list a regular submission using this information, ideally the listing will be at level 2 and 1 click of the homepage, if you have more than one page ideally the listing would be featured to insure you don’t lose ranking.”
I like this next one.
“If there is more than one page of listings in your directory category, it’s suggested that you list this neutral resource as a Featured Listing so that you don’t lose ranking.”
If there’s more than one page of listings, adding this site as a Featured Listing would place it on multiple pages - and it’s no longer listed as other normal listings.
Are we participating? We have an interest in seeing how the search engines currently index and score nofollow links, so we added a nofollow listing to DirectoryRanking.com in the Web Directories category at eWebPages Directory to see for ourselves.
Ever wonder what the future holds for general web directories? First and second tier directories will always have a place on the net, but what about the smaller, general web directories?
Consider that the average new directory utilizes a popular free script, the default or free template and a readily available category DB, I’m convinced that the future is not so bright that I’ll need my shades.
Add that these new directories are launched on the same webmaster forums and likely receive the same submissions from the folks that frequent these forums just like the directory before it and the picture becomes just a bit clearer. Ever notice the same listings in the same categories over and over again?
What is there to separate one new directory from those preceding it? If you’re reading this blog, I’m sure that you’re familiar with the term duplicate content; and you can guess where I’m heading from here.
The Quick Buck Crew (thanks an0n for the term) offer cheap Featured Listings in multiple directories hosted on the same servers and approve the same crappy submissions as their last gallant effort - which lasted until the flood of new submissions died down when their announcement thread fell off of the first page.
If you start comparing these directories, you’ll soon see the similarities and realize that few of them really have the potential to amount to much, or become a presence on the web. Little if any promotion is being done; the majority of it amounts to submitting listings in all of the free directories and foolishly interlinking their own sites to excess.
Utilizing the same script, template and data base repeatedly is slowly creating a target, and with each new directory launch, the bulls-eye is increasing in size. Relying on submissions for their content, these directories exist primarily for other webmasters and offer real users little in the way of quality content.
I wonder if these directory owners recall what happened to guestbooks, or if they realize that they’re likely headed down the same path?
Why do some webmasters submit their sites to paid directories when there are an over abundance of free directories everywhere?
Does a paid directory provide more value or a better link than that of a free directory?
Is it worth submitting your site to new PageRank 0 directories? How much value is there in that?
Why pay to be included in a low PageRank directory when you can get an equivalent listing elsewhere for free?
Perceived value.
Frequenting webmaster forums I read numerous questions and comments regarding the value of paid directories. Some webmasters will not pay for any directory listing as they just don’t see any value in doing so.
Paid directory announcements seem to invite rants about the belief that nobody in their right mind would pay to be in a PR0 directory as it doesn’t offer anything over the free directories.
Seems the primary factor or consideration is still PageRank. Too many webmasters suffer from Pixel Envy and have difficulty determining value of a quality directory listing.
Relying on the outdated graphical display of a browser add-on reinforces the notion that the average webmaster is truly ignorant. Ever notice the interest in buying cheap links in “new” directories with instant PR4 or greater? Does anyone question how this new directory is magically a PR4, 5 or 6?
There are much better metrics available to determine future value of directory listings, paid or free. Read the rest of this entry »
Now out of beta, Google Desktop 4 is available in 26 languages plus a Japanese beta version. Read more at Inside Google Desktop.
Google Sitemaps has been renamed to Google Webmaster Tools and there’s a new Google Webmaster Central Blog, your one stop source for information regarding crawling and indexing on Google.
Google Webmaster Tools provides tools and information to keep you informed and increase your crawl coverage and visibility on Google.
For example, if you notice your site is being indexed using both versions of your domain (www and non-www), you can now tell Google your preferred domain URL format for crawling and indexing. Check it out.
eWebPages Web Directory has finally launched and is doing well.
We’ve received a nice number of quality submissions to populate the categories and some webmasters have taken advantage of the initial Featured Listing pricing. We appreciate their support!
eWebPages Web Directory is a professionally edited, searchable, general web directory. Listing options include free Standard Listings and Featured Listings for top placement and increased visibility for a one time fee.
Feel free to submit your quality sites for inclusion. Please submit well written titles and descriptions; our editors are likely to just delete the keyword stuffed titles and spammy descriptions rather than edit them - after all, what do you expect for free?
Google has decided to follow MSN’s lead and allow webmasters more control of the ODP site titles and description snippet displayed in their search results.
Google’s creation of sites’ titles and descriptions (or “snippets”) is completely automated and takes into account both the content of a page as well as references to it that appear on the web. While we’re unable to manually change titles or snippets for individual sites, please be assured that we’re always working to make them as relevant as possible. One source we use to generate snippets is the Open Directory Project. You can direct us not to use this as a source by adding a meta tag to your pages.
To prevent all search engines (that support the meta tag) from using this information for the page’s description, use the following:
META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOODP”
To specifically prevent Google from using this information for a page’s description, use the following:
META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOODP”
If you use the robots meta tag for other directives, you can combine those. For instance:
META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOODP, NOFOLLOW”
Note that once you add this meta tag to your pages, it may take some time for changes to your snippets to appear in the index.
More information is available in Google’s Webmaster Help Center and in the Google Sitemaps Blog
Every so often you read a discussion at one of the webmaster forums regarding the benefits of a Yahoo Directory listing and the advantages or disadvantages in Google.
The first complaint I always hear is the pricing - a $299.00 annually recurring fee for review. As Yahoo’s directory is professionally edited, unlike the Open Directory Project which is edited by volunteers, it’s not surprising that there is a fee.
In order to maintain a listing in their directory, your site is subject to an annual review, and someone is paid to review your site. From checking our log files, it appears that Yahoo editors perform a much more thorough review than the volunteers at the Open Directory Project.
Personally, I can live with the fee if I can’t get a site accepted for free. Yes, Yahoo does add sites for free.
Google Checkout or “GBuy” as it has been referred to has finally launched. An online wallet service that Google is hoping will attract more advertisers by providing an easier check out process for their customers.
Google Checkout streamlines the buying process by storing a buyers billing, shipping and credit card information to enable fast, smooth checkouts.
AdWords advertisers that use Google Checkout will have a small shopping cart icon appear in their ads that Google hopes to turn into a symbol of trust with online consumers.
AdWords advertisers can save on some of the processing fees, currently 2% plus 20 cents per transaction. For every $1 spent on advertising, they’ll receive $10.00 worth of transaction processing for free. Someone else noted that it’s like getting a 20% discount on your advertising.
Merchants do not need to have a shopping cart to sell single items on their web site. By simply adding a Buy Now button, buyers are taken directly to Google Checkout to complete their purchase.
Check Out buttons allow merchants to sell multiple items to buyers by integrating their web site with one of Google’s ecommerce partners or via Google Checkout API.
Demos are provided for merchants and shoppers, and more information can be found at http://checkout.google.com or in Google’s Blog. Merchant sign up and approval took us less than 5 minutes.
Google has secured yet another toolbar agreement, this time with Adobe Systems, Inc. The agreement to bundle Google’s Toolbar with Adobe’s Shockwave Player downloads was announced this past Wednesday.
The Google Toolbar will be offered as part of the Macromedia Shockwave Player installation process for Internet Explorer. It was also noted that under the terms of the agreement, the toolbar would also be offered as part of other Adobe product installations in the future.
Google is thought to be securing these deals as far in advance of the anticipated release of Window’s Vista OS in order to gain further access to the consumer base by adding their search box to the web browser. Vista will offer Microsoft’s own search system as the default setting in an attempt to gain market share.
Adobe’s Shockwave player has been downloaded a reported 200 million times, which places it on an estimated 55% of internet ready desktop computers.
Like their earlier toolbar deal with Dell, none of the financial terms of the agreement were released.
Adobe Signs Multi-Year Distribution Agreement with Google
Adobe and Google team up for Toolbar
We’ve been watching how a Blogger flaw is being exploited and wondering how quickly Google will realize and react to this problem.
The problem is that whenever a blogspot subdomain is transferred (to another blogspot subdomain) or exported to another domain, the transferred blogspot subdomain is immediately released and available to anyone with a Blogger account.
Many of these subdomains have large numbers of backlinks that may never get updated, providing the opportunistic with instant PageRank and traffic (human and bots). Google search results provide a regularly updated list of the available subdomains if you know which search terms to use.
Someone creative has grabbed these available subdomains and created what appears to be regular 404 error pages like one you would normally see if you visited a blog that had moved.
The difference is that these faked error pages are loaded with hundreds of hidden links to subdomains that have been flooding Google’s search results.
If you’d like to see what this guy’s been up to - view the source code of the 404 error pages listed in the above search results.
Related:
New SPAM sites…billions of results!!!!
How to Get 5 Billion Pages Indexed in Less Than 30 Days
Google has long been the preferred search engine and has slightly widened it’s seemingly insurmountable lead over rivals Yahoo and Microsoft’s MSN Search again.
In May, Google served up 59.3 percent of the search queries, followed by Yahoo in second with 22 percent, and MSN Search in third with just 12.1 percent.
Microsoft and Yahoo both have made large investments in development of their own search technology and still find themselves chasing Google which gained a 1 percent increase since March. MSN Search lost a point and Yahoo remained unchanged.
Search is still considered the largest revenue generating segment of the online market, acounting for almost 41 percent of revenues.
Online advertising increased 30 percent in 2005 to $12.5B, and is expected to continue its growth.
Remember when Google would proudly display the size of their index on the home page or publish a milestone when the index size increased?
It seems size no longer matters as they removed the statement from the home page back a short while back. Or maybe they realized that relevancy is what matters most.
The original concept of using rel=”nofollow” to combat blogspam or splogs was a good idea when originally proposed by Google.
This was to identify links that should not be counted as a vote or endorsement by the linking page. It’s interesting to note that it was originally designed to be utilized on pages where users or visitors could add links by themselves such as blog comments, guestbooks, visitors stats or referrer logs.
I’m seeing more and more comments on the expanding use of this attribute by some search engines, especially in relation to paid links or text ads placed on a site.
For instance, Matt Cutts suggests using rel=”nofollow” on paid links:
What if a site wants to buy links purely for visitor click traffic, to build buzz, or to support another site? In that situation, I would use the rel=”nofollow” attribute. The nofollow tag allows a site to add a link that abstains from being an editorial vote. Using nofollow is a safe way to buy links, because it’s a machine-readable way to specify that a link doesn’t have to be counted as a vote by a search engine.
On a site that we are associated with, the owners sell advertising to help offset some of their operating expenses. They offer several advertising options including button ads, text ads, individual topic sponsorship or for the most visibility they offer site sponsorship ads in either format.
The most popular ads by far are the text ads, which are placed on the bottom of the page where a reader might want to find related information from other web sites after reading an article.
The ads and web sites are reviewed prior to their acceptance and must meet certain guidelines. While the owners do not endorse any of the products or services advertised, they do not use nofollow links for the most part as they are completely unaware of this tag or it’s intentions.
I really hope that this doesn’t cause them any problems with “trust” in the future. We’ll have to wait and see.
I think the original intent of ”nofollow” was a good idea, but it’s sad to see that it’s been ineffective at stopping blog spam. It’s now referred to as Google’s embarrasing mistake.
I’m encouraged by Jeremy Zawodny’s blog post Nofollow No Good?
Look. Linking is part of what makes the web work. If you’re actually concerned about every link you make being counted in some global database of site endorsements, you’re probably over-thinking just a bit. Life’s too short for that, ya know? Link and be linked to. Let the search engines sort it out.
MSN made a grand move today allowing webmasters the option to have their Open Directory Project descriptions removed or not displayed in MSN’s search results.
MSN, like other search engines, uses data from the Open Directory Project, and in some instances they will display the site snippet from the DMOZ directory in their search results.
What interests me most is the comment by Girish Kumar regarding the possibility of error or bias in a human edited directory such as the ODP:
“Just to give some background, the Open Directory Project at dmoz.org is a repository of millions of human-edited descriptions. Even though these human-edited descriptions provide a lot of value, with human editing may come human error, bias, descriptions getting outdated, or the editor’s text may simply not suit the webmasters who want to be represented in their own way.”
To opt-out all you need to do is add a meta robots tag:
META NAME=”ROBOTS” CONTENT=”NOODP”
META NAME=”msnbot” CONTENT=”NOODP”
While MSN is the only search engine to currently offer this option, it would be nice to see others follow their lead. This is definitely a good thing.
Read more in MSN Search’s WebLog
Copyright Infringement
What is copyright infringement? According to Wikipedia, it is the unauthorized use of copyrighted material in a manner that violates one of the copyright owner’s exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works that build upon it.
As the web grows this seems to happen more than we’d like to think about - you publish your work online only to find that your intellectual property is being used on someone else’s web site verbatim, or as a derivative work, or even distributed freely to others for their own benefit, financial or otherwise.
So what can you do about copyright infringement?
Ever browse the Google Directory? I enjoy how they have the listings ordered by PageRank™ as opposed to alphabetically, but I’ve always wondered about the PageRank bar in front of the listings.
They are different from the PageRank displayed on Google’s Toolbar and there are no values assigned, so you can’t mouseover the bar to see if it’s a PageRank 6 or 7, or whatever it may be.
Clicking on one of the PageRank bars takes you to an explanation about the green bars:
Web Pages Ordered by PageRank
Unlike other directories that can only list web pages alphabetically regardless of how good they are, the web pages in the Google directory are ordered according to Google’s patented PageRank™ technology. This means that the most relevant and highly-regarded sites on any topic are listed first … not buried deep within a list of other pages. You can read more about PageRank and how it works by clicking here.
What do the horizontal green bars mean?
The green ratings bars are a measure of the importance of a web page, as determined by Google’s patented PageRank technology. These PageRank bars tell you at a glance whether other people on the web consider a page to be a high-quality site worth checking out. Google itself does not evaluate or endorse websites. Rather, we measure what others on the web feel is important enough to deserve a link. And because Google does not accept payment for placement within our results, the information you see when you conduct a search is based on totally objective criteria.
What I found interesting in this explanation was that the display is supposed to indicate what other people on the web feel is important and that Google doesn’t evaluate or endorse websites.
With the explosion of general directories lately (everyone’s an editor) it’s nice to find one that stands out in design and quality.
With one of the best new directory marketing techniques I’ve seen recently, Loren Baker is off to a running start with Umdum.
To celebrate the launch, we are running a free submittal promotion which will run until 5 pm PST on Thursday April 20th. You can have your site listed in Umdum for free by Umdum Web Directory these simple steps.
1. Go to Umdum.com.
2. Select the most relevant base category for your site by browsing our Category Map.
3. Click over to the most relevant category then submit your site and select the free “Non-profit” payment method 
4. Rinse and repeat - submit your sites which deserve to be listed. We are looking for businesses, blogs, guides, content oriented sites, other search engines, your favorite sites.
5. Do not submit gambling, drugs, or illegal content sites. Do not submit ‘built for AdSense sites.” Do not submit scrapper content sites.
6. Submit one AUTHORITY site such as USAToday, your favorite local news channel, a Web 2.0 site, your favorite search engine, or other large sites.
7. List the sites that you submitted in the comment form below. I will then review, edit (if needed) and approve those submissions. (Do not link to the sites in the Comments field as SEJ’s spam filter will hold your comment in moderation if it includes more than 2 links).
That’s it. You’re now listed in Umdum if your site passes our Editorial Process.Your site will be approved in less than 24 hours if not instantly.
You won’t get that from DMOZ.
While this promotion has ended, you can bet that it will be mimicked many times over. If you missed out on a free listing, we still recommend submitting to Umdum. Good luck with the directory Loren!
For far too long the average web site owner has narrowly focused on ushering visitors to their web site via the home page, or through the front door.
If you talk to the average webmaster it’s not long before you soon realize that most of them share outdated promotional ideas and have not evolved with the search engines.
Instead of maximizing the potential of their web pages, they’re trying their best to promote their web site as a whole, utilizing a single page of content to attract a broad audience.
This may have worked well in the past, but today there is so much more opportunity once you realize that search engines index web pages, not web sites.
Promoting web pages or separate sections from your site increases the marketing opportunities available to you. Link development becomes easier and the odds of surfers finding you are more in your favor than ever before. I’ll take 200 visitors to 30 pages over 6000 visitors to the home page any day.
Targetted traffic is the best traffic a search engine could send you. Isn’t it about time you started helping the search engines to do so?
Seems Google is once again giving some weight to alt text for images. Previously disregarded unless the image was hyperlinked, alt text once again appears to be a contributing factor in the search results.
This was generally abused by webmasters trying to gain an edge over the competition by using a long string of keywords and ignoring usability.
I wouldn’t rush out and start changing all of the alt text attributes on your web pages hoping for an edge, I really doubt it’s given serious weight.
Remember, it’s all about the visitors.
There was quite the buzz with million pixel ad web sites a brief time ago, when a young entrepreneur came up with the idea of selling one million 1×1 pixel ad spaces for $1.00 each. The Million Dollar Home Page was born. It brought out so many copy-cat sites that they can’t give away those ads now.
We recently came across a new variation of the million dollar ad web sites called the Million Clicks Button. Advertisers are afforded the opportunity to “own” the button for a set dollar amount until the next advertiser purchases the button for a higher dollar amount. All of the traffic from visitors clicking the button are directed to your web site for the duration of your ownership.
The cost to own the button starts at just $1.00US and the amounts double with each purchase, up to $1,048,576.00US for the right to own the button until 2012.
How the owners of MillionClicksButton.com plan on sustaining the growth and traffic necessary to attract an advertiser willing to pay in excess of $1,000,000.00 for the right to own the button through 2012 is unknown at this point. The Million Dollar Home Page buzz lasted a little more than 4 months.
I wonder if anyone else looks at the whois info before making a purchase; it’s not very reassuring to know that as of today, the domain name is registered for a single year.
Domain: millionclicksbutton.com
Registrar: ENOM, INC.
Created: 07-APR-06
Expires: 07-APR-07
I imagine some of you that clicked the button might be thinking what the fuzzuck am I doing here? Well, the way we figured it, we really couldn’t go wrong for a buck. We just hope you didn’t break the Million Clicks Button on your way to making internet history.
Thanks for stopping by.
Our best wishes to Rohit and Lata, the owners of MillionClicksButton.com! Read about their progress at Million Clicks Button Blog