Thursday, September 14, 2006
Best Directories Article
Rarely will you find an industry so fraught with hearsay and misinterpretation as the SEO industry. Commercial sites wishing to boost their rankings in the SERPS will use any method possible to increase the search engine exposure of their sites - from submitting to directories to optimizing their content to just plain old link buying.
Unfortunately, nobody really understands the algorithms used by search engines such as Google in choosing which sites rank highest for a certain search term. However, that doesn't stop people from claiming to have the inside track to search engine success.
One of the tried and tested methods for boosting rankings - or at least boosting Page Rank - is placing your links in directories. There are thousands of them out there, and the price to get your link in their listings can range from zero to upwards of $100 a year. The problem, though, is that the actual benefit of a single link in any given directory is difficult to quantify. You don't get a congratulatory email from Google to tell you that a certain link pushed you over the top to a higher Page Rank. It doesn't work like that.
There is, however, a small light at the end of the directory tunnel. As detailed in this article at Avida Directory, the guys at Seomoz have come up with a tool that measures the page strength of a website - in effect, rating the importance of a link from a particular site to help webmasters work out how much a link is worth.
The folks at Avidadirectory recently ran the tool through a whole bunch of directories and came up with some surprising results. While Dmoz (the Open Directory Project) came up with the expected 10/10 rating, there were many directories ranking relatively high that came at a reasonable price. Exact Seek, for instance, was one of only two directories with a 7/10 page strength - but it's free to submit your link. Conversely, directories such as Topical Beach and Alfa Directory have a page strength of just 1.5 and 1 respectively, and yet charge between $29 and $40 a year for the basic submission.
All in all, this is an extremely useful article for webmasters looking to promote their sites on a budget. Take your pick from the directories at the top of the list and get the most bang for your buck. Seems like common sense, really.
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Unfortunately, nobody really understands the algorithms used by search engines such as Google in choosing which sites rank highest for a certain search term. However, that doesn't stop people from claiming to have the inside track to search engine success.
One of the tried and tested methods for boosting rankings - or at least boosting Page Rank - is placing your links in directories. There are thousands of them out there, and the price to get your link in their listings can range from zero to upwards of $100 a year. The problem, though, is that the actual benefit of a single link in any given directory is difficult to quantify. You don't get a congratulatory email from Google to tell you that a certain link pushed you over the top to a higher Page Rank. It doesn't work like that.
There is, however, a small light at the end of the directory tunnel. As detailed in this article at Avida Directory, the guys at Seomoz have come up with a tool that measures the page strength of a website - in effect, rating the importance of a link from a particular site to help webmasters work out how much a link is worth.
The folks at Avidadirectory recently ran the tool through a whole bunch of directories and came up with some surprising results. While Dmoz (the Open Directory Project) came up with the expected 10/10 rating, there were many directories ranking relatively high that came at a reasonable price. Exact Seek, for instance, was one of only two directories with a 7/10 page strength - but it's free to submit your link. Conversely, directories such as Topical Beach and Alfa Directory have a page strength of just 1.5 and 1 respectively, and yet charge between $29 and $40 a year for the basic submission.
All in all, this is an extremely useful article for webmasters looking to promote their sites on a budget. Take your pick from the directories at the top of the list and get the most bang for your buck. Seems like common sense, really.
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