More directories at now zero pagerank

[ownerrim]

I guess this one just went poof in the last week or two:
Uncoverthenet

And there are quite a few more. I wonder if google has assigned someone the task of finding known directories and then deciding to zap them or not based on certain criteria.

[Event_King]

Yep, hmmmmmmmm. What could this decision be based on though?

[cws3di]

I had never seen that one - damn sad that G has PR0 on it now.

It actually looks to me like a quality site. Clean, legit and useful content.

I may be wrong - I didn't examine the whole site, it is really huge and represents years of sweat and work.

FAR FAR from what we all know as scrapers and odp clones.

What gives with G?

[a1call]

Hi,
Looks like a redirect or canonical issue:
www.uncoverthene*.com/lyrics/
is PR 7

[Event_King]

The old design looked better before they changed it. It gives some nice results and has a fresh clean look to it, but if Google has penalised them, you can be sure something is up, it doesn't look good for them.

I remember when Bluefind lost it's rank, nice directory but something dodgy went on - must have.

It's a shame as Uncoverthenet looks promising and some massive work went into building it. But without pagerank, I dunno if people will find it as appealing?

[ownerrim]

I found a list online of 600 directories (I had no clue there were so many) and there were a number of them that had been zeroed out. That's why I wonder if there is now a "directory zap" department somewhere in the the bowels of the googleplex. Although I did notice that in the case of uncover it's just the home page.

[dataguy]

The only "Directory Zap" by Google that I'm aware of occured July 28th, has there been another one?

[hutcheson]

Google doesn't need a "directory zap". This is surely a job for the ancient "bad neighborhood detector" or some derivative thereof. Directories can quite quickly provide strong indications as to whether they are really directories as opposed to free-for-all-link-farms or classified-ads-with-URLs.

[chrisuk]

I think its quite commonly accepted that a lot of directories have lost pr, been removed or penalised over the recent 18mths because they have been over SEOed or have been too top heavy with PPC listings.

When there was just two or three directories using this model it was no big deal and very ingenious and succesful. However too many new directories tried the same approach and I suspect they and some of the more established sites took a fall as a consequence. In essence the proliferation of SEO based directories mean't all directories were fair game for closer scrutiny. The best possible news for penalised directories is Google losing marketshare and a more diverse range of alternate trafic sources evolving that can recoup lost traffic.

However the smart directory operators will have diversified anyway so that they manage with or without Google. Its worth noting that many PPC companies will also have lost some revenue given that they provide much of the revenue that smaller directories rely on.

[ownerrim]

"because they have been over SEOed or have been too top heavy with PPC listings."

Seo'ing of directories is hardly a danger to serps. Directories that are basically paid admission free-for-alls is more of a danger. You line up 600 directories and pay a few thousand to get in. At some point, all those links become age-recognized by google and bam---your site takes off.

I posted about this once before: I saw a site buy a half million links on a huge network of online newspapers. The site went into the sandbox and I thought "wow, google is on the ball". Then 4 months later, out of the sandbox and on top of the serps for the site's keywords.

Why did this happen? Because google allows the links to age into maturity. Maybe the thinking is: if the links are stable over time, they're reliable. All this means is that if you can buy a ton of directory links or keep paying for a ton of sponsored links, you can buy your way to to the top.

The google engine is simply not as smart as many would think, and certainly anything but intuitive.