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The Aviva Directory is one of the very few directories that I would recommend you bother to list your website in. I wasn’t a big fan at first but after a number of months in the directory I started to see some benefits of using Aviva. Since then things have carried on in much the same manor and it’s now right up there when I start link building for a new website.

I’ve got some good news, to celebrate their 3rd birthday the Aviva Directory are offering $20 of all regular and featured listings (now only $29.95 per year for a regular listing and $54.95 for a featured listing). To take advantage of this offer just use the coupon code:- birthday3 when creating your listing. This special offer is only valid up until the end of this month.

So unless you’re very new here I guess you know that I’m not a big fan of directories, I have used them in the past for a link source and the amount of traffic they have delivered has been very poor at best. However there are 1 or 2 out there that are known to have ranking benefits, Yahoo and DMOZ namely.

However gaining 1 way links appears to be getting harder all the time so I thought it was time to have a look at some of the directory options again. This might surprise you but it’s actually much easier to spot if a directory is high quality or not (in terms of the search engines anyway) now. Ever since Google slapped link sellers and reduced the page rank of many directories it had the adverse affect of leaving webmasters without any doubt of where it was worth getting a link from. As thousands of rubbish directories were hit hard, losing page rank and being removed from the index others were left to stand out like a beacon of quality amongst the sea of shit.

www.abilogic.com – Was once a PR5, now a 4. One of the very few directories I’ve used that had a positive effect on SERPs (all be it with Yahoo rather than Google). They offer free listings or to spped things up you can buy 5 deep links for $14.95.

www.octopedia.com – This is one of those very rare directories that has actually gained PR in recent times. By paying a one time membership fee of $25 you get 2 submissions (each of which can contain up to 8 links). A flat structure really helps this directory benefit their customers.

www.platinax.co.uk/directory/ – Holding on to their PR5 you can buy a lifetime link in this directory for £14.95. This one seems to have ducked under Google’s radar for now.

www.sezza.com – Having a home PR5 you have to pay a 1 time review fee of $14.95 to get a listing here. Look carefully before buying though as some categories pass PR much better than others.

www.yeandi.com – A little gem this one. Expect to wait 6-8 weeks for a review of your free submission, alternatively you can speed things up by paying $20. Even better PR seems to flow freely through this PR4 directory.

There you have it, 5 directories that are worth adding to your link building strategy.

I sort of feel like I’m coming out of the closet here, although to be fair I think being homosexual would be accepted by more people than the confession I’m about to make…..I’m an ODP editor. Actually that should read…. I was an ODP editor, I’ve just quit.

To those of you not in the know the ODP (Open Directory Project) is located over at www.dmoz.org and it is widely regarded as being the most influential directory of websites on the internet. One example is that even Google base their directory on the work of the ODP. The premise is great, a giant directory of manually reviewed websites, take all the best bits of the world wide web and leave the spammy rubbish for the search engines to battle with via algorithms.

I first applied to become an ODP editor for 1 reason, where I live is dominated by financial services. However because of the high value of these services it’s a website spammers paradise, SPLOGS are 2 a penny and the legitimate businesses struggle to stand any chance in the search results. It’s a small place and a close webmaster community, in the many years I’ve worked here I’d heard the same complaints over and over about local websites struggling to rank for even very local terms. An entry in the ODP can really help with this (from my own personal experience I knew that the 3 web sites I had listed in the ODP accounted for 90% of all my visitors and all my top 1 search positions). At the very least it would ensure that they could rank for their own company name! So I applied to become a regional editor for the local business community and was quickly accepted. My first job was to remove the spam entries (whoever was editing previously obviously had an ulterior motive) and create some order, which I spent a large part of my own time doing, for free. What I ended up with was the correct structure for the ODP and more importantly something that local businesses were happy to submit to (At first the only people submitting to my area were spammy website designers who insisted on submitting every half arsed/half finished client creation). Part of the problem before I started was that big legitimate businesses were not prepared to have an entry for their high quality business website alongside Mr Adsense SpamSite or even Mr Dodgy Plumber. I know this, cos I asked them! This was why I had to create the correct categories for companies to submit to and I was happy with what I’d done.

What pissed me off and what finally led to me quitting the ODP was “expert” opinions of other editors. I read the huge amount of bumf that goes with being an editor and I knew what I was doing but during my clean up exercise no less than 3 other editors felt the need to chip in with opinions on what I should and shouldn’t be doing. I don’t mind taking on other peoples opinions but I’m not kidding here, each one of these “experts” came back with totally different advice. In the end I felt like I was the ball in a game of 3 way tennis. For some reason they all wanted to chat to me via MSN as well, I couldn’t decide whether these were just people desperate to show off with their knowledge of if the were just desperate for a friend, I’m not being funny but my weirdo alarm was going off big time. The biggest complaint about the ODP is that it takes so long for a website to get listed (I know, I’m on a 2 year wait for 1 website myself) but I think the real problem here isn’t so much the number of websites as it’s the egos of the editors, it’s like 1 huge pissing contest. All I wanted for my region was to have a directory within a directory that the webmasters of quality websites were happy to have a listing in and that any people who actually do use the ODP to find a website* could find websites in my area easily. The added bonus to all this being that these legitimate companies/websites would also get any boost in search rankings that an entry in the ODP would give. It was starting to work as well, in the last few months the types of website submitted had gone from spam to real brick and mortar businesses, including some of the very big financial institutes. My section was small but the number of changes that other editors wanted to where websites should be listed could have easily taken up all my time, I can only imagine the wrangles that go on over the larger areas of the ODP, no wonder no new websites ever appear to be added!

I spent a large part of my own free time editing the ODP, unlike many other editors I was never corrupt (yes, lots of editors are only there for personal gain) and my motives were always to create a great directory of high quality websites for my region. In the end though the thing that makes the ODP different is also the biggest problem with it, the editors.

*This is something that the editors at the ODP should remember, very few of the people looking at the ODP are surfers, they are actually webmasters looking for a free link.

I have a very limited number of web directories that I actually consider to be of some benefit to webmasters in terms of either referred traffic or link love. My list at the moment is headed up firmly by DMOZ (The ODP) and the Yahoo Directory.

Aviva Directory is another one of the directories that gets mentioned a lot whenever anybody tries to point out that there are good directories out there. It’s one that I’ve used for several years so have easily been able to shoot down anybody trying to make out that that will boost your page rank and deliver thousands of visitors to your door. Just because the directory has a high page rank and a great Alexa ranking DOES NOT mean that it’s going to pass that on to you.

However, after having 1 clients website listed in the directory for 6 months with no referrals something is just beginning to happen. This month has seen 19 referrals and 2 enquiries coming from the Aviva Directory. Of course those 2 enquiries were from the operators of spam directories looking to add our website but at least it’s traffic! I suspect that it’s a combination of new directory owners looking for websites to add and maybe that the Aviva page with our listing on is now starting to rank somewhere in a search engine (I strongly doubt that it’s Google) for maybe the companies name or a related phrase.

So if you are willing to pay the $49.95 for a regular listing then it looks as though Aviva Directory can refer you some traffic. On the other hand it’s made no difference to the search results or page rank.

I’ve been getting involved (maybe a little too much) in some discussion over at John Chow’s place about web directories. It wasn’t all that long ago that I did a post about how ab-sol-ut-ely fricking useless they are in terms of any benefit they offer to webmasters. Well it appears as though thanks to the recent major slap on the face by Google to all worthless directories (Yahoo and the ODP still rank fine), a few have taken it upon themselves to order Review Me’s to increase sales. No problem with that, my problem is that still not 1 directory or directory submission service has been willing to prove that they can provide any benefit!

I’m not some sort of bloody amateur here, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on behalf of other people and myself on having links put in directories and to date, they’ve made sweet FA difference to any website I’ve been associated with. It really annoys me when you get some smug git harp up about what benefits their new directory is going to offer (as opposed to the other 500,000 out there with good PR) without having actually proven anything! Whenever it comes up in discussion the only people who ever back a directory are people with invested interest, either people who own a directory or people who run a directory submission service. The webmaster community (or those that I know anyway) don’t like them, have wasted money on them and won’t go back. The problem is simple, too many outbound links, no related original content, very little quality control and nobody actually uses them to find websites (Yeah I’ll just go to MyBigWorthlessDirectory.com and look for that!)

Seeing as how nobody did or is likely to step up to my last challenge, I’m going to set a new one. Maybe the “Make Money Online” market isn’t a good one to show what a worthless rip-off service you’re pushing prove yourself with so I’ll make it even easier. I’ve got a lovely little Captive Insurance website. Over 99% of the population wouldn’t even know what captive insurance is so not much competition there. As it stands the site does ok in terms of visitors and SERPS but has a low page rank and it could always do better. If you’ve got a directory or directory service that you claim has a benefit to webmasters then prove it? When I see any positive affect I’ll give you a nice write-up as well as submit any existing and all future clients sites to your service. If you’re just hyping up another shit web directory that does nothing but line your own pockets then best not apply. I won’t hold my breath waiting.

Everybody has seen an advert like this one (OK, maybe not quite as good as that one) where people will offer to submit your website to 1000, 10000, 100000 “Search Friendly” directories for a stupidly small fee. Has anybody ever actually bothered to review these services though? Well luckily for everybody I’ve used quite a few of these directory submission services and here’s the truth.

What Is Search Friendly

In directory terms I think them mean that

1. The page has page rank
2. The page does not have an excessive amount of outbound links (30 seems to be nice)
3. The links are not disguised or no followed

What they don’t tell you however is that simply by creating a directory of non original link only content AND by offering a paid submission option (which almost all do) they are anything but search friendly.

But Do They Work

I would look at work as 3 things, some direct referral traffic, an increase in general search ranking performance, a positive effect on page rank. If you don’t see any or all of them then I’d say that this linking strategy is not working.

I can only go from my own personal experience, but in the 3 years I’ve been using various link services (ranging from manual submissions in Thailand to automatic large scale directory submission) I can honestly say that I’ve never once experienced any of the above factors. No direct referral traffic, no increase in search performance and no effect on page rank. Over that time I have clients who didn’t know any better spend hundreds of dollars (without consulting me first I must add) on these services which no positive effects, I’ve spent my own money to try and kick-start new websites and again no effect. For me and my clients it’s been like throwing money down the drain. There are several directories out there (the ODP, Yahoo directory) that are well known to have a positive effect on your website, there are a few more that do appear to be useful in terms of referral traffic but in general I wouldn’t waste my money on these services.

Prove Me Wrong

If you run one of these services and want to prove me wrong, then please be my guest. At present this blog gets around 60 unique visitors a day, has no page rank (although a 3-4 is predicted) and does very little in the natural search results. If you think your service can boost these stats then drop me an e-mail to close dot cowley at gmail dot com

You perform your magic on this site and if it works I’ll happily write a lovely review about your service and it’s positive effects. Not only that but I’ll recommend you to several existing and all future clients. If you can prove that you’ve got a directory submission service than can be of benefit then you’ll do very well out of this deal. My arms are crossed and I’m waiting here for somebody to prove me wrong.

The ODP or Open Directory Project to give it it’s full name is located at www.dmoz.org In short it is one of, if not the most important website directories on the internet! A hefty claim but why, simply put Google base their directory on the work of the ODP , this is because it is entirely manually edited. Any website that is included in the ODP has passed a manual check for quality. Perhaps only Yahoo’s paid directory can compare, did I not mention than an entry in the ODP is free?

But how does this translate into money? The 2 websites I own that are featured in the ODP have higher page rank, more visitors and generate more revenue than the other 20 put together. If I go back over time and look at the chicken and egg scenario then I can clearly see that the jumps in traffic came after the inclusion into the ODP. Whilst the ODP generates very little if not nothing in the way of referral traffic, the extra page rank and exposure (many other websites “borrow” directly from the ODP) have resulted in better search rankings and more visitors. And talking of page rank, there are many advertising networks which pay more for higher page rank, Text Link Ads straight of the top of my head.

So the ODP is good, getting in however can be difficult. I’ve got a good track record of having websites accepted, stick to the following rules and you should stand a good chance.

1. Make it original, an RSS scraped or website sourced from other sites is not going to pass manual checking
2. Spell check, the quality of the information is all important, design is secondary to the ODP
3. When submitting keep your title simple, either the name of your company or the name of the website, do not add keywords
4. Your description should only contain what you are about and what your website contains, it’s important to avoid using this as an advert or keyword stuffing
5. Look for a category that already has an editor, it may speed up your submission (think local)
6. Only submit your website to one category, spamming is really frowned upon

Follow the rules and you should find yourself in the ODP. Although hard to measure I’m sure that being in the ODP has made my websites a lot more profitable than would they would have been if they weren’t in it.