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What am I missing?!
I grabbed a copy of gossamer threads and built a music directory for my music ezine readers.
I bet you had to upgrade your hosting package with the explosion of traffic you got, LOL.
But seriously, how can anyone possibly try to justify these "directories"? Once again this is my opinion but it seems to be shared by many of us. They are pointless other than to make the owners a bob or two by providing PR or whatever it is that they do. I don't even look at them, does anyone? If not why are they there?
In my less informed days I used to look for hotel rooms with them but I quickly realised that they were all serving up the same results picked up using the same methods from the same places. This was when I realised that all they were doing was preventing me from finding the information that I needed.
Thinking back, at that time I did not blame the search engines for this because I did not understand the concepts. I tended to get angry at the sites for being there without realising that it was the search engines that had chosen to put them there.
Things are getting different now and people (including myself ;o) are more web savvy. Google is getting reported on network news and most people now know what search engines do. Let the public decide!
I have experienced this myself over the last several months. I have a commercial site that also provides a lot of info for beginners in my field. At the bottom of most of my articles I provide links to other sites offering similar information that are ranking high in Google for the same keywords (not to competitiors) and those pages where I have been doing this I'm getting more visitors because the rank is obviously increasing, so I do believe this is the way to go.
As someone said "content is king!"
Lorel
At the bottom of most of my articles I provide links to other sites offering similar information that are ranking high in Google for the same keywords (not to competitiors) and those pages where I have been doing this I'm getting more visitors because the rank is obviously increasing, so I do believe this is the way to go.As someone said "content is king!"
Even when it's someone elses content?
Even when it's someone elses content?
I write all my own content if you're talking about my pages.
Lorel
But seriously, how can anyone possibly try to justify these "directories"? Once again this is my opinion but it seems to be shared by many of us. They are pointless other than to make the owners a bob or two by providing PR or whatever it is that they do. I don't even look at them, does anyone? If not why are they there?
I suppose you build your sites because you want to help people. ;)
Just thought I would answer your question: Yes people look at them. I'll let you in on another secret: people buy from them, too. And if the visitor doesn't find them useful, then they are gonna hit the back button until they find what they are looking for. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely some unethical practices going on with these pages, ie redirecting to other pages and turning off the links.Bottom line, if these pages are outranking your's, then you are doing something wrong.There is nothing magical about these pages. Anyone in this forum can duplicate these results. All they are is keyword optimized pages for non-competitive keywords(in most cases). But I guess it is a little easier to whine and complain instead of making one's site better, especially when you'd rather build your site and try to force Google to comply with your ranking strategy instead of building your site to comply with Google's. You can work hard or you can work smart. There is nothing wrong with hard work, but don't criticize those who choose to work smart simply because you choose to work hard. One last thing, just because you don't like something doesn't make it SPAM.
PS
New here, the names Kevin. Hope I didn't ruffle too many feathers.
There is nothing magical about these pages. Anyone in this forum can duplicate these results. All they are is keyword optimized pages for non-competitive keywords(in most cases). But I guess it is a little easier to whine and complain instead of making one's site better ...
Phew! What a way to join the forum. LOL, can I send you a copy of my book, "How to win friends and influence people"?
It's stretching things (or perhaps being a little naive) to say that anyone can duplicate these results. When your site provides information about a subject, most of which has been written by yourself, lists of links to other sites are not appropriate.
You are obviously doing OK on Google right now so I understand how you can warm to them. However I have had major problems with my site, which since Saturday a.m. appear to be fixed. I have spent the last six months not trying to "make my site better" but trying to make my site better for Google. I am now back where I want to be in the results and I have my fingers crossed that this will remain stable for a few weeks or even months to give me some breathing space to get on with my other work.
I do however think that I have a right to complain about sites like the one that last week appeared in the top ten for my KW. This is 100% spam site from Poland with the bottom of the page just a list of keywords and links including some pornographic. (I am in an engineering field.) It is also one of these pernicious sites that tries to stop you closing down your browser until you make them your homepage, etc. These sites exist only to spam, they have absolutely no value and indeed can cause many people serious problems.
What p*sses me off is that these sites appear to have lots of common factors which I would have thought would have been easy to detect for Google. I get angry when I see them ranking above me. We will have to agree to disagree on this one but I think that allowing all of these directories for the sake of the one or two that add value to the results is not the way to go.
I think that whatever the Google engineers did to improve things at the Brandy update, for some search terms, needs to be rolled out for all search terms as soon as possible.
Best wishes
Sid
Anyone in this forum can duplicate these results.
Hissingsid ..nice to see you back ....
You sure this was "brandy" for me they went away entirely for some words ....the example I gave was affecting a site that the main KW only gets around 1000 searches per day...the "crap" now is all gone and theservers are no longer returning 200 ...Like I said they appear to have bled the sector dry ..thrown away the tube and moved on ( economising on the bandwidth that now brings no return ) ...
Again if it was an "algo" then it would catch all the offenders ......
In my market it was definitely Brandy that brought sense back. I don't know if it was some hand tweaking by kindly GoogleGuy and friends or if it was something more widespread.
If they are using some form of semantic indexing then this would make sense as by definition the "algo" would depend on an understanding of the words searched for and the "quality" of that understanding would differ from term to term. Many of the papers on semantic indexing speak of learning sets and hand tweaking based on results. The enormity of trying to tweak this for tens of thousands of terms is just mind blowing.
Alternatively this could all just be caused by turning down the inbound link knob and turning up the outbound link to relevant pages knob. Its interesting to look at SERPs where there are pairs of pages from the same site and look closely at the page listed first and the supporting page. My analysis of this is that the first page often has content that matches in a broad context with the actual term very low in density and as anchor text. The link using that anchor text leads to the second page which is more specific and has the actual term in greater density.
The directories that we are talking about here fit this pattern in that they, either by accident or contrivance have broad content (LOL) with the search term primarily in anchor text and these links lead to pages that are specifically on that topic and have a higher density of the search term.
i know that there will be cases which disprove this but it may be one way to work with the current algo.
Best wishes
Sid
When your site provides information about a subject, most of which has been written by yourself, lists of links to other sites are not appropriate.
WOW, do I disagree with that statement!
I'm talking about the "one page wonders" with urls which are something like green-fuzzy-widgets-chicago.com which contain a header which reads "Green Fuzzy Widgets in Chicago" and then proceeds to list anywhere from 10 to 300 links and zero content other than stolen or reworked snippets from search engines.
Their only purpose is as a doorway page! Its neither "working smart" nor is it useful to the searcher or the quality of search engine results ... but it most certainly IS spam!
These are doorway pages and deserve to be nuked!
Look - the whole point of this thread is about sites with no content just links out. For all of you who champion these have a think about what the Internet would be like if it were all like that?
Um, let me guess. You aren't a programmer.
A programmer would say something like, "well, since the offenders are working independently to create spam that looks like real content, any particular algorithm will invariably only catch some of the spammers. Because it is impossible for any algorithm to tell the difference between informative, meaningful language ("content") and sufficiently cleverly jumbled words ("raw keyword-stuffing".)
It is obviously an algorithm. And anyone who tells you differently, either flunked or did not take any formal computer science theory courses.
Let's just recall the days of "PR hoarding". It was very popular just last fall, not to link out (unless of course, you got a recip) and it had been so for a very long time among a lot of "toolbar aware webmasters". We might want to recall that links are the building blocks of Google, and we might call this smaller weight on PR, and added weight on outbounds "an incentive" to link out, or even "Google self defense" if we prefer drama.
So, the incentive will probably be there for a while - and at some point the knob will be turned back again, or something else will kick in to reduce the ranking of these "false positives... ahm... directories". (fwiw, afaik, imho)
>> That one appears to be a directory, but in fact doesn't link
Marcia, you've identified the core of the issue, methinks ;)
Among other things, i run a directory. I've been doing that for six years or so, which is why i think that i have some understanding of this subject.
Before six months ago, a few were large directories like dmoz, yahoo, etc - and then a lot were small-ish niche directories (as the large ones do not have the specialist knowledge required to cover all niches well). Then, the listings that only appeared to be independent directories were either dmoz clones, search portals with PPC listings from the major networks (you all know the names), or a combination. Just like now, you could have different views on the usefulness of each type as well as each individual one (there's always been differences in quality even among the very good ones) but in general, all of them could fit the term "directory".
Now, there's a new kind. It's a site that is not a directory, but it is constructed to mimic a directory. Even in the directory business these sites are becoming annoying.
The thing is - it's not very easy for a non-human to see that they are not directories, as they are doing everything that directories are doing, they are just doing it exceptionally bad as seen from a directory usability perspective. Some of them don't even look like directories, they're just keyword lists and ads. Seen from a SEO perspective, otoh, they're... well, getting good rankings (and probably bringing home the bacon).
As i'm in that business myself i recognize them instantly, and i can see quite easily that they add little value - also, they surely give the directory business a bad name (just look through this thread if in doubt).
Outbound links are always good for the user (if properly labeled and on-topic). But, if the user ends up going in circles with no other way out of the network than an ad, i shall be the first to question the user benefit. Still, there's obviously a webmaster benefit, as that ad click is also a conversion and it probably helps pay the rent (for as long as that business model will last).
hutcheson, you are shooting from the hips.
I don't know which kind of Directories you are referring to but I run one which messed up, was moved to another hosting company and although it has been built in its entirety (all categories and listings), it still remains empty and dead, non-functional. Eventually, it will be moved to one more hosting company where some of its PERL routines could be enabled (this seems to be the problem).
But you don't believe in webmasters making mistakes or trying to make things work, or things just *failing*. If you see this particular Directory you will think it just looks like one but in reality is spam because of its links at the bottom... You have to give the benefit of the doubt in some cases.
I'm talking about the "one page wonders" with urls which are something like green-fuzzy-widgets-chicago.com which contain a header which reads "Green Fuzzy Widgets in Chicago" and then proceeds to list anywhere from 10 to 300 links and zero content other than stolen or reworked snippets from search engines.
You mean like...
a page with four, 468x60 p0rn site dialer adverts one stacked above the other, 200 links at the bottom, no content, unlinked (or redirected back to themselves) outbound links, with perhaps even a touch of multiple timed popups. One that any regular human being would have no reason to go to.
There seem to be somewhat less of them now for some reason, maybe something got turned back a bit. But there's been a discussion going on in the AdSense forum on just this thing, except it's about these sites swiping content from people's sites just for AdSense revenue
[webmasterworld.com...]
