Planet13 - 10:44 pm on Jul 8, 2011 (gmt 0)

We have run control tests on directories alone - free directories - and have found negative rankings as opposed to positive rankings.

When you say "alone" do you mean if a site's backlinks include ONLY directories and no quality links?

Or are you saying that sites that have / had good backlinks and then ADDED free directories suffered in their rankings?