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May 05
May 05
There’s been quite a bit of hoopla about TrustRank [PDF] lately. In my opinion, this hoopla is much deserved, and in the coming months we will see TrustRank more heavily integrated into Google’s algorithm.
How does it affect link building? Well I can think of a couple ways that TrustRank will affect my link building strategy:
1) Links from "trusted sources" such as DMOZ (or DMOZ-listed sites, or .gov’s, etc.) will become more important than ever.
2) Links from low-quality sites that are heavily integrated into spammy SEO link networks may not only not help your site but could possibly hurt your site.
Many directories that are favored by SEO’s to inflate link popularity are heavily integrated into spammy link networks; they often lack any sort of "trustworthy" inbound links, and, conversely, they tend to link out to sites that also lack "trustworthy" links (a double whammy!)
Aaron Wall, besides being a Leonardo DiCaprio look-alike, is a pretty darn smart SEO. He talks about how links from spammy directories could hurt a site in his new article, TrustRank & the Company You Keep.
You are the company you keep. this means:
- their inbound linkage data will likely come from many low trust sites
- many sites which have limited trust scores (a disproportionately large percentage) will be included amongst their listings.
- too many links from these sites may thus pass AntiTrust (or a negative TrustRank score) to listed sites.
Now, my own qualification: TrustRank will devalue many spammy directory links, but high quality directories may be closely linked from the couple hundred "seed sites" Google uses. Here is my short (and by no means comprehensive) list of directories that I think will help a site’s rankings via TrustRank. I am listing those directories that I think have a high percentage of "trustworthy" incoming links, and that have a high percentage of outbound links that are to "trustworthy" sites.
The obvious suspects (mentioned by name on Google’s Webmaster Guidelines page):
1) DMOZ
2) Yahoo! Directory
The less obvious suspects:
3) JoeAnt
4) Gimpsy
5) GoGuides
6) Uncover the Net (a W3C member!)
When you are considering paying for that directory listing, you may want to ask yourself: is this directory making an honest attempt to categorize high quality Web sites? Or is it just listing any random www.viaga-viagra-mortgage-mesothelioma.info site that’s willing to pay $20? 
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I do think you’re wrong… from what I understand they pay editors to actively scour the ‘Net and add high quality informational sites… for free.
Interesting research you have done
I will have to check it out…
your opinion is your opinion — I’m sticking with mine.
Those directories aren’t perfect — I challenege you to find better ones that are at least 5 years old (i.e., stable).
And for the record I am always proud to sign my name to stuff
>I’d tell you my name if I didn’t think spammers would get it and deluge me.
lol
btw, you never answered my challenge
Its a shame that somebody with absolutely no clue of the cost involved to operate a directory would come along and call goguides a scam. Last month at WMW conference goguides.org spent over $10,000 dollars promoting itself just to build brand awareness. A substantial amount of money has been set aside for airing TV ads across the U.S. and another $30,000 has been set aside for future conferences to continue building brand awareness. All this promoting is very expensive but has a direct affect on listings in the directory yet you bash the directory because it charges a fee? Of course you charge your customers nothing I suppose and work your daytime job for free? At least Go Guides has stood the test of time and works to promote its listings and brings awareness to the directory. Go Guides will never have search results like google because it doesnât have robots indexing billions of pages. But what it does have is real people doing real reviews following real guidelines. That makes goguides a quality directory regardless if you agree with it or not. Next time you decide to slander a directory because of its business model try doing some research first. GoGuides is one of the few good directories on the net.
Andy Hagans: You missed a few of the other top directories.
http://sbd.bcentral.com/
http://www.business.com/
http://www.zeal.com/
http://www.skaffe.com/
>>>>I do think you’re wrong… from what I understand they [UncoverTheNet] pay editors to actively scour the ‘Net and add high quality informational sites… for free.
You are correct on this one. For example this category has 26 sites in it and they have been all added up for free.
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir/2872/1.php
This category is another one that I am working on that should end up having 50 to 100 sites and they will be all added for free. (Of course LBB is in there.)
http://www.uncoverthenet.com/dir/16198/1.php
equity real estate
I don’t buy a directory link unless I consider the link to worth the money entirely for traffic or branding purposes. If there is an SEO benefit, great. If not, I don’t really care.
I have a feeling that any directories that pass significant amounts of PR are going to already have substantial traffic.
Brandon
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