Multimedia Agency

What are link directories?

Link directories list down all websites - sometime not according to rank or popularity but based on category. For example if you have an online store for plus size clothing for women, your website will be listed under the category of clothing in a link directory. There are two types of link directories – general and human edited.

The general type of link directories based on categories, region, country or language while human edited is the updated link directory. Human edited link directories are updated by editors based on the concept of search engine organization or SEO and through ranking. Most people prefer the human edited type of link directories.

Penalized Link Directories

Of late, issues are roaming around the Internet world regarding penalized link directories by the largest search engine Google. What does it mean of link directories being penalized? Penalized link directories means they have lost or don’t have their usual ranking from search engine results. For example, a link used to monopolize the first page in Google search but after the penalty, they are no longer there.

This is the main concern for most link directories since they have worked hard to improve or maintain their ranking in search engines and waking up one day loosing their ranking that they worked so hard to achieve. Likewise, these people will just get the surprise of their life when they learned that the traffic from their websites lowered to as much as 95%.

In fact, there are many link directories that had been penalized like Alive, Aviva, ewebpages, Big Web Links, Elegant Directory, and Directory Dump among others. Some of these have complained that the search engine Google didn’t give any notice that they will be penalized. In fact, almost sixty link directories were penalized by Google causing people concerned to wonder if Google is using an iron fist on those link directories. However, Google is happy and feels justified that it has taken a decision in the longer interest of webmasters.

Reasons for Penalty

Google penalized the paid link directories; that is why, when you search for link directories those are free directories and human edited. Google penalized many big web directories that even brought uproar in many forums from readers and those directly affected like the owners, but Google defended their stand that buying links is against their company regulations.

Google is also against those who are selling links using with unethical techniques and intentions. Some directories were penalized since they buy high ranking pages to increase their own ranking now that is a very obvious unethical method that Google cannot permit to happen.

Google is against all of those “manipulative” directories with general subjects just to generate large revenues. There are also bad links that cause Google a lot of problems especially those that spread spam in the Internet. One of the sign for this kind of link directories are those that anybody can get in; there are no regulations and guidelines for those links who want to be enlisted.

Google bounced back at those penalized link directories that their tem for anti-spam sent notifications to those link directories about to be penalized. Some link directories cleaned and made necessary actions and escaped the penalty. It is also a lesson learned for everybody to stay away from these links that will just cause trouble.

To end up, the move and decision of Google to penalize some web directories is just a way of cleansing the Internet from unwanted and malicious links. Penalizing some link directories will lessen the problems of spamming and phishing that are one of the problems among Internet users.

Tags: Backlinks, Google, Link Directories

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