Google and Niche Directories

[rkeefe]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice from some of the web gurus here.

I designed and now maintain a website that sells various types
of medical supplies and equipment. So far the traffic to the
site has been really good, but like any business we're always
looking to get more exposure.

We've noticed that when they phone in orders, some customers
ask us questions that are related to our service speciality
yet not really part and parcel of what we do. The number one
question is whether we can recommend good doctors in an area
that they're moving to, especially if we're looking at a
medical specialty like neurology, cardiology, etc. We happen
to know many such specialists who use our site and are
contemplating the creation of a vertical directory consisting
of medical specialist information. It would not be part of our
commercial site, but a separate entity that we would link to.

Google does appear to take subject relevancy into account when
measuring the value of inbound and outgoing links. Can I
safely assume that an exchange of links between a medical
supply website and a directory of medical personnel can only
benefit both in search engine rankings?

How much weight does Google give to vertical / niche directories?

[glengara]

*How much weight does Google give to vertical / niche directories?*

IMO it would depend entirely on the credibility of the directory.

[rkeefe]

Good point.

[glengara]

I started off with a niche directory back in '99, collated as many sites as I could find through trawling the SEs /directories, and had the ultimate resource for that particular niche on the web, and G loved it.

Same could be done today where a genuine desire to build a useful resource exists, IMO.