Directories and Search Engines

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

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 could move ahead of some of the well known second tier directories by years end.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »