Tip to find directories & websites to list/add your website to

[jempp]

Hey guys,

Just a little tip for those of you that are stuck finding a directory or website that is relevant to your keyword, to list your website on:
In google, search:

intitle:add+url OR intitle:submit+your+site OR intitle:add+your+site "keyword"

Hope it works for you ;)

Jeremy

[Marcia]

Nice tip Jeremy, thanks. I once found some good links by searching for

inurl:addurl

I can't remember some of the variations I added on, but found that looking a several pages in was worthwhile.

[jempp]

Thanks Marcia :)

[jewboy]

ALWAYS know the directory you submit to! There are many fraudulent directories out there, aimed at taking a submission fee without providing you a returned benefit. Use a trusted list of directories.

Furthermore, beware free directories. FFA sites are not looked kindly upon by any of the search engines.

Do your homework first, before you lose submission fees or the possibility of being deindexed.

[bhartzer]

Here's my personal list that I use when I'm trying to find links--or a place related to my keyword(s). These are the searches I do:

Replace "your keywords" with words that your site is targeting.

"Suggest link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Suggest a link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Suggest site" + "your keyword(s)"
"Suggest a site" + "your keyword(s)"
"Suggest URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Suggest a URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Suggest an URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add a link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add site" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add a site" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add a URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Add an URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit a link" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit site" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit a site" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit a URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"Submit an URL" +"your keyword(s)"
"favorite links" +"your keyword(s)"
"recommended links" +"your keyword(s)"
"cool sites" +"your keyword(s)"
"cool places" +"your keyword(s)"
reciprocal +"your keyword(s)"
directory +"your keyword(s)"
directorys +"your keyword(s)"
directories +"your keyword(s)"
exchange +"your keyword(s)"
resources +"your keyword(s)"
links +"your keyword(s)"
"your location" +"add url"
"your location" +"suggest a site"
"your location" +"submit site"
"your location" +links
"your location" +"reciprocal links"
"your location" +directory

[jewboy]

Great list. A small piece of advice - beware of bad neighboorhoods! If you find a site willing to accept your link - investigate it first!

[Chris Boggs]

here's a good thread (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2769) to help you on your way to finding some directories and good links.

[Marcia]

Worth a good read is martinibuster's post in this thread at WebmasterWorld:

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum17/2457.htm

If the directory can get mapped to an SEO neighborhood then it's going to be worth zip, imo. I've tested this by submitting and looking at who comes crawling.

What neighborhood I'm mapped to by IBL's is important to me, and I'm turning down otherwise decent links because I don't want my sites connected with over the radar SEO websites.
Regarding the other thread:

here's a good thread to help you on your way to finding some directories and good links.It's a "start" to help finding, but unfortunately a LOT of the sites listed in that thread fit right into the description of what martinibuster is warning about being mapped to SEO neighborhoods.

Discretion and discernment have be used.

[Chris Boggs]

interesting theory martinibuster poses, Marcia, but this seem very tin foil hattish...besides who but teoma/ask uses "neighborhood" schemes anyway?

[Marcia]

who but teoma/ask uses "neighborhood" schemes anyway?
Links from sites considered topically relevant and/or trustworthy sources have been helping with rankings for quite a while. So have proximity factors related to such links. "TrustRank" is the latest flavor, but there's been an element of that in evidence for a long time. And Google has a history of negativity toward bad neighborhoods, so they don't ignore the concept, though they may approach it differently..

Every single links-based algorithm and patent that's been published outlines criteria for evaluating fhe value of links - including Google's.

[Chris Boggs]

Thanks marcia for the quick reply. But this would seem to me to put quite a damper on the "it's ok if it's relevant" theory of link development. Now we have to worry about too many relevant SEO sites linked together? I thought this was a good thing. Perhaps I am misunderstanding martinibuster's idea. It seems that he is saying that "above the radar" SEO sites are using relevancy too much? What a headache...I just don't see how any of the SE's could put an exception into the relevancy rule in regards to SEO sites, but I guess it's possible.

[strategicrankings]

Thanks Bhartzer,

i've seen your post on another forum and a few days later it was moved to their paid area. Thanks for putting it here.

[martinibuster]

besides who but teoma/ask uses "neighborhood" schemes anyway?

I think Google does use neighborhoods but in a different way than Teoma. The neighborhoods show up when doing statistical analyses of backlinks to see what is normal and not. The Google statisticians were the ones talking to me about links at the recent New Orleans search conference, and who showed up at the presentation I gave about links.

MSN checks on the quality of backlinks. At the New Orleans search conference they had several search engineers working their booth (some people thought they were merely pretty faces and avoided them- I almost did). One of my questions was how come I don't get crawled from certain directories by MSN? The short answer was that it was a quality issue.

A couple years ago it startled people to think that Google might be deprecating irrelevant IBLs (deprecating and "not counting" are different things), even after Marissa Mayer stated it, but now people take it for granted.

Watching Patterns, creating statistical models
As Marcia stated, Google has been using neighborhoods (the good neighborhood/bad neighborhood dichotomy) in one form or another. What I'm getting at is that when you make a map of all the sites linking to you, and who is linking to them, it says something about your site, patterns arise. These patterns are very important, because Google is very much interested in statistics.

Some of the Google engineers attending the New Orleans search conference were statisticians. The Google chap who attended my Link Dev presentation was one of those. We chatted about the link between statistics and link dev, and it was basically looking at patterns that arise that are then analyzed to find what is normal and what is abnormal.

The question I would like to pose is, if you have a golf website, is it normal that you share a hundred backlinks with hundreds of seo websites?

The last few months of breaking news confirmed something I read elsewhere, I think it was in the Google patent document, about suddenly amassing links from media sites and determining that this site must be newsworthy, and gives it a bump. Is this not taking into account a neighborhood (in this case, a media neighborhood)?

Google doesn't punish a site for amassing hundreds of links overnight from news sites. In fact, it seems to reward them. I think anyone who has acquired inbounds from news sites have seen the bump in ranking.

Is it really so far fetched? How can someone be concerned about avoiding bad neighborhoods, avoiding interlinking sites within your network, class c's, and unique IPs and not be concerned about what neighborhood your site is mapped to, and what that says about your website when compared statistically to other sites in the neighborhood you would like to be?

I'm sure the notion of avoiding being mapped to directories that are heavily mapped to SEO link networks will not sit well with many that have a financial interest in those directories, but come on, it's also common sense.

Let me make this clear, there are many very good directories out there and I am not saying they are all bad. Let me repeat, there are many fine and useful directories out there... that I use for increasing my IBLs and ranking better- and the occasional visitor.

[stuntdubl]

They sure aren't what they used to be MB. Gotta watch where ya leave you're footprints now. If you don't believe it...start using the "similar" feature on a bunch of sites and you'll be quite surprised at the result. No, that golf site SHOULDN'T be related to an SEO site, but in the context of it's linkage data it certainly is.

In addition to Bill's list, I would suggest adding "advertise" + keywords, and try to find "footprints" from common directory software like gossamer. Trouble is...if you can find these...so can...shhhhh...they might we watching :eek:

Find yourself a nice combination tool for these as well...refine that list that you append to your keyword an spit out a list in html format that you can click through to the serp to make life a bit easier on your link developers.

[Chris Boggs]

Thanks martinibuster and marcia for explaining the way Google uses neighborhoods. Although it hasn't been much publicized, the idea certainly seems to be part of what seems to make sites "tick" at Google. I have always preached on-topic links, but not really paid much attention to the neighboorhood idea. This will certainly cause me to look even further when doing link analysis.

I guess the main part I was worried about when I mentioned the tin foil hats was the idea that SEO sites that link together could somehow be considered to be in a "bad neighborhood." I see now thanks to martini's clarification that this meant "sites that were created by SEO's in order to create artificial link popularity," not actual "SEO websites." I am now breathing a little easier :o

[Marcia]

stuntdubl
No, that golf site SHOULDN'T be related to an SEO site, but in the context of it's linkage data it certainly is. Good point stuntdubl, and worth a little more of a look at.

It might be understandable for a golf site to be related to an SEO site if they've given a testimony about marketing services rendered with a link back. Or even linked to, as is traditional with web design companies and graphic artists.

But when you have a golf site - or a site on childrens books or kitchenware, etc. - linked from from a bunch of sites or directories that are connected up with each other, and seo sites and link brokers, and what are obviously client sites with premium listings in prominent places, each leaving a link trail to be mapped for commonalities, it starts to build an unnatural pattern.

And then when some of those in turn are connected up with cross-links or sitewides or even a discernible link trail to each other and have sitewides or text ads to texas holdem, body parts enhancers, sports betting, online casinos, payday loans, human growth hormone, car hire, cheap hotels, - you get the picture - with the same text link brokers and seo companies found on multiple cross-linked sites, then the golf site has not only been associated with a neighborhood that's way visible on the radar, but may have spent a bundle of time or money doing it.

Another thing is the rate of accretion of links. Are there dozens of those showing up within a weeks time or within a month's time, plus some sitewides and text links from totally unrelated types of sites as well? All within a short time frame?

The concept of neighborhoods isn't anything new, there have been papers out there on it for years, as well as papers on "related sites," and webmaps and linking relationships. There's actually a lot more out there on those than there is on TF/IDF any more.

[DaveN]

MB :
Google doesn't punish a site for amassing hundreds of links overnight from news sites. In fact, it seems to reward them. I think anyone who has acquired inbounds from news sites have seen the bump in ranking.

Depends on news sites.. over the last 12 months I have collected monster data sets for link analysis... of course I'm going to got the ball on this ... but Google seems to have a good link - bad link if the % of bad links if higher enough you get a slap

DaveN

[Robert_Charlton]

...if the % of bad links if higher enough you get a slap

Does this suggest that submitting to a great many such directories to start a site off might be a bad idea, but might be OK later if you have enough good links?

(This is assuming that most directories are likely to be bad. I feel that if you look at their backlinks, it's usually pretty clear that most are.)

No, that golf site SHOULDN'T be related to an SEO site, but in the context of it's linkage data it certainly is.

To take this point a step further, suppose that, instead of a golf site, it was an SEM/SEO site you were getting listed in these directories. Would the SEO-backlinked directories still be a bad neighborhood, or are they now OK because they're relevant?

Or... are the SEO link networks suspect even for an SEO site? Does that link trail that Marcia wonderfully described, with "sitewides or text ads to texas holdem, body parts enhancers, sports betting, online casinos, payday loans, human growth hormone, car hire, cheap hotels..." etc, somehow corrupt these networks whether they're topical or not?

My feeling is that they're suspect regardless of topicality, and that there are many things about their structure that would tip Google off that any good statistician could dig up. Just a guess.

[DaveN]

Does this suggest that submitting to a great many such directories to start a site off might be a bad idea, but might be OK later if you have enough good links?

(This is assuming that most directories are likely to be bad. I feel that if you look at their backlinks, it's usually pretty clear that most are.)

Blogs , Guestbooks , Directories etc are the easy form of gathering links... ask yourself "if you where google how would you handle someone that was gaming your search engine ?"

DaveN

[Marcia]

Does this suggest that submitting to a great many such directories to start a site off might be a bad idea, but might be OK later if you have enough good links?At what rate have links been added for that site all along?

Look at this member sharing her experience, a sudden burst of IBLs after little if any activity for many years on a reputable, established site.

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6908

Not only got sitewides but PAID someone to do 100 directory submissions for her. What SEO nowadays would submit to 100 directories without disciminating and at least looking at some kind of link accrual history for the site in question? It must have been just a "pay to submit to directories" service of some kind, there's a whole business model around that nowadays. IMHO it's all tied in with the new influx of directories springing up, a hit by Google is no surprise.

Very bad idea starting a site with a ton of "directory" submissions, IMHO, compared to some published figures on what's normal for new sites.

[Robert_Charlton]

Very bad idea starting a site with a ton of "directory" submissions, IMHO, compared to some published figures on what's normal for new sites.

Blogs , Guestbooks , Directories etc are the easy form of gathering links...

The first part of my first question was basically rhetorical. Yes, I'd never go near blogspam, guestbooks, etc, either... but, to play devil's advocate, since DaveN mentioned percentages, I am wondering about them.

On a site that's already ranking, how cautious do you need to be these days? There are some directories, not that many, that on the surface look like they're well edited and well structured, showing signs of good quality. But, let's face it, they all have backlinks from the directory categories of other directories (if for no other reason than backfill).

Do we avoid them all, or just confine our directory submissions to the few directories that are so big that you know that the SEO component of their backlinks is very small? I'm talking about manual submissions, done slowly... not this 100,000 sitewides kind of nonsense.

[maxd]

My take is that google is getting better at weeding out the duds i.e blogs, guestbooks, trackbacks etc. All from one of these sources then you are doomed.

We are trying out an automated run of 30 links a day in a different algo to a total of 210 a week to "bad sources" of links to see what happens. Guess Daven is far ahead of me with the data he has compiled. The future is quality links and you just need to think how to automate/pay for to get in the right places.

[TallTroll]

>> The future is quality links

And I guess you'd know, eh Max? I thought the future was garlic bread?

[maxd]

Well recips worked fine for me till now and still do. When people say they do not work or stay away from them I laugh. And recips are meant to be bad according to some. Blog/forum/guestbook/recip links with a mix still work.

What constitutes a good link in the future though? Tell me that Garlic bread man. BTW nice first post

[TallTroll]

>> What constitutes a good link in the future though?

It's all about the flow of links. Ideally, I'd like to be able to examine not just my link source (my Tier 1 link), but their sources (my Tier 2 links), and their sources (my Tier 3 link) and so on. I'd also consider my outbounds in the context of my inbounds...

"Remember, an SEO's strength flows from the Engines. But beware. Cloaking, scraping, falsified WHOIS data. The dark side are they. Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny."

>> Well recips worked fine for me

I think recips are a bit diluted these days, but if you are back and forthing between good hub / authority pages using relevant anchor text, I say bring it on....

>> BTW nice first post

Not too shabby yourself :)

[Marcia]

I'd like to be able to examine not just my link source (my Tier 1 link), but their sources (my Tier 2 links), and their sources (my Tier 3 link) and so on. Don't know that I've thought as far as 3 hops back, but there's been evidence for quite a while about 2 hops back being looked at, around 2 years or so if I remember right. It's an odd case, but I've had a page rank for a phrase and it said in the cache that the phrase was only in links pointing to the page. It wasn't - it was a link on a page linking to the page that linked to the page that was ranking - two hops back. Only one of the words was on the page directly linking and that was a single word in the alt attribute of an image that was linked to the ranking page.

I'd also consider my outbounds in the context of my inbounds...Could you clarify that a bit? You mean theme-wise?

[TallTroll]

Sorry, been less than crystal here. As a practical matter, I wouldn't go back 3 hops without a fantastic analysis tool to do the work - and I can only think of 1 guy who might have it, at this moment. As for the 2 hops, I remember what I read, cheers Marcia ;)

>> Could you clarify that a bit? You mean theme-wise?

Again, less than crystal. Yes, that's what I mean. If my IBLs are about blue fuzzy widgets, my page is about fuzzy widgets, I'd want to link OUT to red fuzzy widgets, NOT green striped grommits. That would confuse the issue

[paulcraig]

hi there all

well ive done seo for a while now and got some good results on purely good keyword rich content internal links and alt tags etc

BUTT now i see how important good links are id like to get in on the action

so far ive considered dmoz - if anyone has any tips or ideas for a newbie to get some good quality ibl s to my site it be greatly appreciated

many thanks paul c :)