Paid Directories - worth it if the category page is PR0?

[aroon]

I wanted to submit my site to a few paid high PR directories. However when I go to the directory the page which my link would be on has a 0/10 PR while the home page of the site has a 6/10 PR. I checked this using google toolbar. Should I submit to these directories then?

[tedster]

If a directory shows a PR6 home page, then essentially I think Google is OK with it. but as we all know, they are not OK with even the idea that you can buy PR for your site. What we might call the "Graybar Disease" has been around for a while now, and it certainly has affected directories, even paid directories with those strict editorial policies that Google has recommended.

So what do those gray bars mean, exactly, in terms of link power from those directory pages? I don't know for sure, but they don't stop me from paying for a directory submission to what looks to be top-shelf in my book. I think there's plenty of value, including Google value, in being accepted into a top directory -- no matter what page they put you on.

[aristotle]

Some of these paid directories call your payment a "review fee", most likely an attempt to get around Google's guidelines against selling and buying links.

I haven't paid for any directory listings myself, but I do regularly submit to free directories, and am convinced that it can boost rankings. In fact I recently got the home page of a small hobby site to PR3 using nothing but submissions to free directories. (In this case I submitted to about 500 free directories over a period of about 18 months)

If you do submit to a lot of directories (free or paid), I think it's important to vary the anchor text and site descriptions some, so that the resulting backlink profile will look more natural. Also, for the same reason, you should submit steadily over an extended time period rather than suddenly making to a large number of submissions within a short time frame.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

I do submit my sites in some of the top paid directories irrespective of what Page Rank page they would appear on.

[Rufus_dog]

I wonder about the same thing. Those inner pages with grey bar are probably not indexed by Google. If you type http://www.example.com/page1001.htm (where your site will be listed), you won't find it in Google. Is there any point getting listed in a non-indexed page?

If the page has PR0, I suppose there is still some value for the backlink.

[edited by: tedster at 8:20 am (utc) on May 6, 2009]
[edit reason] switch to example.com - it can never be owned [/edit]

[aristotle]

As I said, I have submitted my sites to hundreds of free directories, and even though the category pages in these directories are almost always grey-barred, most of the links are apparently getting counted. I know this for three reasons:

1. Many of these links from free directories eventually show up in my Google Webmaster Tools lists of external backlinks.

2. The home page of a small hobby site has reached PR3 with nothing but links from free directories. And my other sites also appear to have gotten PR boosts from free directory submissions.

3. In several cases I have seen big jumps in rankings for specific search terms after I began using those terms as the anchor text in my submissions to free directories.

I know that some people think links from free directories are worthless. But that hasn't been my experience.

[mcskoufis]

Recently I did this experiment for a new directory I am developing and added a link from a web directories category of another directory in a subdomain of a completely unrelated site.

Did this to check if it will help me get indexed and funny enough I got indexed in 3 days and google sends like 5-10 visitors a day after a week of being indexed.

The directory I added the link from is a PR3 with all categories having gray pagerank.

So I'd definitely say that they get counted. Just no PR juice I assume, but is fine with me as the issue here is to get some listings.

[aristotle]

i don't think the assumption that a gray bar always means no PR juice is valid. Some of these gray-bar pages in directories are old pages that used to have publicly-visible page rank on the little green bar. In some cases, I think they still have PR, but Google is using the gray bar to hide it, as a way to try counteract the buying and selling of links. In other words, I think that some of these pages do have a positive PR, but that it is hidden under the gray bar. I gave my reasons for believing this in a previous post in this thread.

[fishfinger]

Many of these links from free directories eventually show up in my Google Webmaster Tools lists of external backlinks.

Aristotle, if you query Google for the page your listing is on i.e. info:http://www.etc does Google return no result?

[aristotle]

Quote: Aristotle, if you query Google for the page your listing is on i.e. info:http://www.etc does Google return no result?

I'm not sure I understand the point of your question. But I just went to Webmaster Tools for one of my sites and checked the first three links I saw from free directories with the info: query, and in each case Google returned the page that the listing is on.

If you're wondering if these directory pages are indexed, they have to be, or Google wouldn't have found and counted the links.

I will say that I mostly submit to newly-launched free directories, so the pages often aren't indexed at the time I make the submission. But in most cases Google eventually finds and indexes them, and I then see them in my Webmaster Tools backlink lists. Is this what you're asking?

[fishfinger]

If you're wondering if these directory pages are indexed, they have to be, or Google wouldn't have found and counted the links

true, but I was interested if you had checked in Google to see if the public definition of a page being included in the index matched the private one in WMT.