Finding directories to be listed in for best google positioning

What would be the order of importance?

[tankman]

I've been here long enough to know that DMOZ is the most important directory to get your site in. Any ideas on what other directories would help?

1. DMOZ
2. Yahoo
3. Zeal.com

Other possibilities:
- Business.com
- Looksmart.com
- About.com

[edited by: tankman at 4:48 am (utc) on Oct. 30, 2002]

[trueMarketing]

We have been listing over 250-300 of our websites in directories pertaining to our business for the past two months or so, on top of all of the normal hand submissions to the big paid for engines like Yahoo, Inkomi, etc, etc.

I would give you a couple of pointers to help you out. These pointers have DEFINITELY helped out our websites.

1st, you know your website or industry better than anyone else, right? Well, knowing that, you should go to Google, Yahoo, Dmoz, just to name a few and do several searches for directories or search engines within your topic area.

Ex: if your products are health related (like ours), go to Dmoz or Yahoo and type in "health directories." From that you should be able to weed through the list and find appropriate ones that don't have redirect URLs in .cgi or .asp, etc. These won't really help you unless the directory gets a lot of traffic and you don't care for the PR but would rather have the traffic only.

2nd, while looking through these directories, pic out the definite ones you want to be listed on and make your submissions. You would be very surprised at how many health related directories there are out there.
Some other topic areas for directories might benefit you as well. It just depends on your industry.

Look at the PR of these directories and that they don't just accept any smuck website that in the long run might hurt your PR. In two or six months that directory might be accepting anything and then you have wasted your time and possibly your PR has been hurt.

I would say over 40 websites we've done this on with averages of 2-3 PR have jumped to 5-6 in two months of reindexing. I'm very happy about this.

ciao

[radiosky]

Your wrong about the Galaxy links. It gave me 5 total links and some of them are and showing up in my backwards links. Surfsafely is as well.

And I do not work for either galaxy or surfsafely -if it was implied I was making a promotional drop. Not the case. I'm still a newby here and if I made WebmasterWorld faux pas, I apologize. But work for them, no.

zeal and looksmart have never showed up in my backwards links. I've been listed with Looksmart 15 months and never seen it shown up as a backwards link, despite submitting the link. If it's there, it's under the pr radar.

[Jane_Doe]

A good way to check on how well links show up in Google is to pick a high PR page from a directory, click on some of the sites and them check the backlinks for them using the toobar. For new sites the backlinks may not show up yet, but if you do a random sample of sites you should get some old and some new. If none of the backlinks show up in Google, then I usually suspect that the way the links are coded is not going to help my Google PR if I submit a site to the same page.

[WebRookie]

Searching in Google on specialty search engines, specialty directories and variations of those search phrases turns up portals with topical engines/directories. Check to see if they are in ODP, then check for popularity level in ODP.

[cornwall]

Well as a result of this thread I have just spent a few hours submitting a lot of sites to Surfsafely.

I'll see in a few months whether the repetitive strain gives me any discernable advantage...every little bit helps.;)

[annej]

Galaxy must have a lot of unpaid links or perhaps I submitted my sites before Galaxy started charging because links to them seem to be well placed on my best search words. I have no idea if they help me with Google but they do appear to be direct links.

Anne

[Powdork]

I wish at this point the mods would remove the aforementioned urls lest the links become worthless;).

[cornwall]

A good way to check on how well links show up in Google is to pick a high PR page from a directory, click on some of the sites and them check the backlinks for them using the toobar.

You know that bit of advice is so obvious when you see it, but I had never thought to do it before. It's really useful way of seeing what links do actually work.

Thanks

[Yidaki]

This is my thread - i would love to hear your ideas about this:

I own a specialized directory / se and i use *safe*, not spiderable redirect links for the listed sites. I would love to pass pr to the sites that are listed within my directory. But i defenitly can't guarantee that there is no nor there will be any "bad neighborhood". I don't want to hurt myself. I only can bring them traffic.

So, what would you do? Loose the pr aware webmasters?
The thread subject reads "directories for best google positioning". Do you mean well listed directories or directories passing lot of pr? What is the weight?

... i'm really curious ... ;)

[cornwall]

So, what would you do? Loose the pr aware webmasters?

Its an interesting point. But I don't think that things are as black and white as you suggest.

1. A good specialist directory/se will always attract webmasters ...if they deliver traffic.

2. A directory/se will always attract pr aware webmasters ...if they believe that directory will deliver pr

I would argue that 1 and 2 above are not mutually exclusive

[Yidaki]

cornwall, good points! No black and white at all - but what about the neighborhood? Who'll loose - the directory, the webmaster, nobody - how? Should i sacrifice my portal for the health and well being of the listed sites?

You see, i'm seeking a way!

Two more things to add:

- Yes, i'm also bit egoistic - having only "closed" unspiderable outgoing links, wouldn't his mean that i'm not a hub / authorative site? So my paranoia hurts myself!?
- For this i have some hand picked quality sites that are listed with their clear, straight url. However this is a really small, well checked selection of sites - what would you (any webmaster) say, if you wouldn't fit into this selection?