Syed Taha

You must be wondering why webmasters are advised to use directory submissions to build one way backlinks to their websites or blogs. By link building, you may be building your websites brand, get a higher page rank, get a better search engine ranking position or simply wants some targeted traffic to your blog or website. In this article, lets discuss building links and search engine rankings through directory submissions.

Nowadays, We find millions of directories on the internet- some of them are free, a few are are paid links directories, and most of them areof no use. Before you start to build one way backlinks to your website or weblog using directory submissions, there are a few things you should consider before investing time and money.

The Directory’s Page Rank
The page rank of a website indicates the page’s importance and the value it can add to your website. But PR 2 with relevant content adds more value to your website than PR 5 with irrelevant content or category. Do not build links with a site based on the Page Rank, but remember that a site with a higher Page Rank, if related, will add more value and also helps your website get a higher Page Rank.

Outbound Links from the Page of your listing
You should start by checking the links of the page where your website would be listed after approval. If this page has greater than a hundred outbound links, this particular webpage is going to add very little value to your website. But there are always a few exceptions to this rule. Now, lets say that this particular webpage has a few websites listed that rank top ten in the search engines. This page has a Page Rank of 5 or greater, and this page is also very highly relevant to the niche of yours. Now, even if there are a hundred and fifty or even two hundred outbound links from this page, you can probably go ahead and get your website listed.

Examples of this are the Yahoo directory and the DMOZ directory. We know the importance of one way backlinks from the DMOZ directory. It has a page rank of 8/10. As we all know that your site listed on a page with the least number of links will give the most value. In the case of DMOZ, when we list our website to the related category which has more than a hundred outbound links, it still adds a great value to our website.

Categories
Check how many sub category pages are their in the main category in which you want to submit your website. If the parent category has more than ten pages of listings, we advise you not to submit your website because when you submit deeper into these pages, they add less value as they themselves hold very little value. In future, such pages may also affect the Directory’s Page Rank. Still if you want your website to be listed in this directory, see that your listing after approval will appear on the parent page or say the top pages.

To ensure this, check if the listings in this directory are alphabetical or if the new listings are added on the top or bottom. If the listings are alphabetical, you can go add your website but remember to name your listing with the starting alphabets like a or b. If they are being added to the top, you must know that over a period of time, as more websites are submitted, your website will go down to the pages, reducing its value.

Analyze Other Listings
Before submitting, lets analyze other website listings. Check if any of them are ranking high for relevant top keywords. Just try to find out if the other websites in the same category as yours are benefiting with a one way backlink from this directory.

The Key Word: Anchor-Text
Check if this directory allows you to use an Anchor-text or just submit a Url. Anchor-text adds a lot of value to your backlinks as the anchor text is usually seen as the keyword and also conveys to the search engines that your website is relevant to the category or content.

Is the Directory being indexed by Major Search Engines?
Don’t forget to check if the directory you are submitting to and your sub cateory pages are both indexed all the major search engines. If its a paid links directory and if it is not indexed, you are just wasting money. And If both the directory and your sub category are indexed and have a recent cache, your directory submission is worth.

Paid Directory Submissions
Ask yourself if paying to get a one way backlink from a directory is worth. Prices for a directory submission are from free to a few hundred dollars. If it’s a paid directory, don’t forget to check the PR of the directory as well as the category page where your website listing will appear, the success of other listing, if it’s a permanent listing, if it’s a single time or a recurring payment etc.

If you got a budget of three hundred dollars per annum, the two hundred and ninety nine dollars per annum for Yahoo directory makes sense, however, if you split that into listings in some other top ten directories with a page rank of four or higher, i.e. thirty dollars a year each, this may be a better option. It also depends on how high the quality of these directories is, and what the price is.

Can the Search Engine Bots see your link?
If you want a higher search engine ranking position, then you should definitely ensure that both – your link and the page that has your link, can both be fully spidered by Google. And also that, the “rel=nofollow” isn’t used in/on your website link, or on the category pages that are linking to the directory page and that the page is not being stopped by a Meta tag or by the robots text file. One way to check if the page is being spidered by the Google bot is to see its recent cache in index. And If the page is marked as a backlink for others websites listed, you can be pretty sure that your link will also be seen.

Spammed? – Is the Directory being Spammed
Make sure the directory you are submitting your link does not use hidden text/links, abusive popups etc. If the directory is promoting a software that uses an adware/malware, you should never submit your website to it.

If the directory is free, and if it doesn’t require an approval from the editor, you may not want to get your website listed as it will sometime in the near future end up with irrelevant spammy links. And this probably will pull down both your backlinks and the directory’s value to a negative.

There are a lot of different ways to build backlinks for your website and directory submission Is one of them. By submitting your website to relevant websites and directories you can help your sites overall ranking and link popularity to grow. Directory submission links are considered to be very important as they are free one way backlinks, permanent and easy to build.