Blog Directories

I posted the following link just a second ago in the other thread :-)

But as far as I remember I have never worked with that list so I don't know how valuable all the listed engines are!

http://www.aripaparo.com/archive/000632.html

I keep an alphabetized list of Blog Directories & Blog Search Engines. I'm always looking for more, some day I'll set up a rating system.

http://www.softduit.com/Blog_Directories.html

I'm always looking for more. Up to 124 links so far.

thanks,
Brettbum

Very few directories generate traffic, and if they do, it's usually fellow webmasters wanting to view your website. The only directories that are worth the time submitting to are those that have a good Google Page Rank, and if you spend the amount of time I do on webmaster forums, you know which directory owners are spending money on promoting the directory.

Why don't you share the information then?

I think Darren makes a logical point, but as kp2575 questions, so what are the most impactful directories? (summarizing).

I went back through and looked at my compilation of directories and reviewed their Alexa ranking, which for time purposes seemed faster than finding the Google ranking.

So I put together a table sorted on the Alexa Rank for each of these directories.

http://www.softduit.com/ranking_directories.html

Some of the Directories towards the top of the list(top 20) were rather obvious for me, however, some of them surprised me as well. And I have to wonder how much benefit might come from some of the directories say in the top 20-40 range.

Like a doctor, I have to ask whether submitting to any of these does more harm than good? If a blogger had the time and energy, would it hurt them to submit to 20 or 30 or 50 or every single directory they could find?

would you mind if a stole an idea from SEOmoz-- and created a PageStrength listing out of your 124 blog directories?

I don't mind. :)

Just trying to share ideas and gather feedback myself!

For what it's worth Alexa is faster at providing a result, but the page strength indicator may be a more relative factor.
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I'm experimenting around with it myself and noticed a couple things /potential obstacles.

You can put together the page rank buttons in a batch job using simple find and replace. This will create the right links, but will not generate the right button. To get the right button, you have to manually click on each button for each link, to find out the true page rank number which is then associated with a button file name.

Then you can go back and update the html code for the right button. The button does not update automatically, so just as with my Alexa example, you have to provide a date for when the page rank was generated.

As I'm working on this effort, I've started a new page but the going is rather slow. :) You can see my preliminary efforts at http://www.softduit.com/ranking_directories_seomoz.html

These are not sorted according to Page Rank yet.

there is a pretty good list of the Page Strength of mainline directories...here

alexa rankings are pretty easy to manipulate and any site which is frequented by SEO/Webmasters is going to have a pretty bloody high alexa ranking...

Hi Paul,
That was a pretty good link. If I understand the link correctly that shows all links and not links specifically targeted towards blogs?

Still a valuable resource even for blogs that want to be listed.

I finished pulling in Page rank information for the link in my last post. It took forever, and I had to wait several times for the SEOmoz server and database to catch up with me. :| I do not have them sorted by page rank.

It strikes me that that for a blog directory specifically, they are going to get hundreds and thousands of incoming links, because everytime someone lists in a blog directory, they typically have to provide a link back button to the blog directory. So Page Rank is going to be somewhat manipulated as it evaluates this item (its not the only thing, but is important)

As I sifted through some of the information in the link you provided, I found a site that provides directories in a tabular form showing page rank, google rank, yahoo rank, msn rank, and alexa rank all at once. It also mentions the cost to list in that directory. (This is what I'm hoping to put together ultimately for my blog directory, but I've got a ways to go yet before I have all the data)
I'm referring to the following link:
http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html

Again this includes lots of directories not necessarilly those focused on blogs.

Excellent links, always something I've wondered about. Thanks everyone

There are a few things I want to point out and make sure people reading this are aware of. PageRank and Alexa Rank in and of themselves don't mean much. (You'll see some sites with high page rank that still get low traffic the same with alexa)

2) Directories aren't necessarly bad in and of themselves-- but I've been reading (see: skimming planning to go back to later this week) some of the MSN research papers and supposedly they have or are thinking of tagging things as "honey pots" to try and catch spam. I'm sure all those free auto-include directories (or at least some) will be on there.

3) Page Strength, Page Rank, Alexa Rank are all metrics and provide some information but it isn't a true picture.

4) Submiting to directories that ask you to provide a link back them them aren't really all that important in a good link building strategy.

I just don't want anyone to see these lists and just submit to them all and wonder why it hasn't really helped them.

All great points Paul, and very much on topic with some of the questions raised above as well.

So as we attempt to ask a better questions, I'm going take a stab at compiling all the insights so far . . .

How should a blogger evaluate and prioritize blog directories that they are contemplating submitting their blog and what are the optimal conditions that would trigger or suggest a submission and what are the conditions (like a honey point black list) that should waive off a blogger?

Maybe if we can build a Pro v Cons list we can establish all of the compnents to be considered, and then determine a rating or merit system for each of these items, and help people navigate this path with something akin to an algorithm or decision matrix.

Pros

• High Google Rank (Metric)
• High MSN Rank (metric)
• High Yahoo Rank (Metric)
• High Alexa Rank (Metric)
• High Page Rank (Metric)
• Cost that is lower than ROI and is not prohibitive
• Easy to submit a site (Paradox - note if too easy, then site may be abused by spammers)
• Directory audience does correlate to Intended Blog audience

Cons

• Costs that present a barrier
• Low Google Rank (Metric)
• Low MSN Rank (metric)
• Low Yahoo Rank (Metric)
• Low Alexa Rank (Metric)
• Low Page Rank (Metric)
• Link Back Requirements (build up Directory Metric, clutter blog)
• Metric Manipulating Directories may be tagged as havens for Spammy Blogs - avoid guilt by association
• Highly Difficult to submit a site (Paradox - note if too easy, then site may be abused by spammers)
• Directory audience does not correlate to Intended Blog audience

Footnotes

* Most Metric's can be manipulated, and a metric that is important in the current time frame may degrade as time goes by and the metric is manipulated

By having a link on a site with a lower metric does that hurt that much?

I submitted to a ton of feed services and directories and have gotten steady traffic off of them. Icerocket has sent me a log of people over time and other services.

It took me like 2-3 hours one day to register for about 120 services. Isn't it good to get your blog out there as much as possible. Kind of like guerilla marketing?

I would think that it doesn't do much harm, but Paul Drago makes a good point that some search engines are starting to question the spammyness of directories that offer links.

It could be possible that if a Directory were identified as a spam magnet that any links offered by that directory might be considered a spammy site and thus be penalized in the search rankings.

Now, from an anti spam perspective this could be an advance in Search Engine effectiveness, however, from the perspective that there are a handful of companies that dominate search (Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask) if they were to engage in this type of tactic, I think they walk a very fine line of potentially turning their algorithms into a form of anti-trust automation. Basically black listing sites, businesses and people by using their monopolistic or ologopolistic powers to thwart other search vehicles and directories.

I don't think any body today knows whether the actual blogs will be hurt by the Search Engine actions, but it probably will not help if they do create a honey pot like algorithm.

There is a big difference between feed services/blog search engines (like Icerocket or Technorati) and directories like Business.com (just an example) most directories will not provide any real traffic just an inbound link for search engines, the directories like DMOZ.org which human edit their entries are probably the only ones with any real value. Where as a feed service will have *real* people (not just search engines) evaluating them and going to your site.
On a related note: the figures for spam pings on those services is insane. It is something like 90% (I couldn't remember if it was 87% or 97% of technorati pings are spam...so I went somewhere in between without trying to over-sensationalize the issue)

and having links on a site with a lower metric won't hurt you-- so long as you stay out of "bad neighborhoods" (linked to spammy sites or spam farms) and even a few of these won't hurt you persay but (in theory) if suddenly you have 1000 inbound links from a huge spam empire *that* may be problematic

I probably used a really poor example by using icerocket, sorry about that. I will check my log file and cite some examples of where I am getting traffic from.

I'd be interested to see-- let me know.

I updated the page http://www.softduit.com/ranking_directories_seomoz.html

Its now listed from highest page rank to lowest. Just thought I'd update this old change for future reference in case it comes up again. thx brett

I went through...the list of n/a sites on the bottom-- most of them are now dead links. but I did get the yourwebloghere.com to work by simply removing the www. (PS 2.5)

It took me a while sorting through this code last night and I tested a bunch but missed those. I'll go back through and update those tonight!

I updated the list with the items at the bottom.

I left the ones with dead links on for now,(links still established) but I included a comment stating that the links were dead and the as of date that I had checked them.

One link, weblogs had been parked by Beanstalk.

I'm leaving them listed for now in case they reactivate at some later date.

I was able to get Your Weblog here to work with the add link, but I'll keep my eye on that one. :)

I think this thread has run it's course now, thanks everyone.