Can Paid Directory Links Cause Ranking Drops?

[internetheaven]

< moved from another location >

I've been reading several posts in various threads where people have seen a ranking drop in Google after buying a BOTW listing. I always thought it was co-incidental/anecdotal/tin foil.

But we just bought 3 sponsor spots on BOTW categories a couple of weeks ago and yesterday plummeted 200+ places in the SERPS.

Just wondered if anyone had anything more than co-incidental suspicions regarding buying links from BOTW and ranking drops?

[edited by: tedster at 5:38 pm (utc) on May 18, 2010]

[tedster]

I've bought lots of BOTW listings and have never seen a ranking problem from it. You indicate "weeks" between the two events, so I doubt that this is your smoking gun -- especially as several posts you've made here indicate other ranking issues that go back farther than "weeks".

[internetheaven]

especially as several posts you've made here indicate other ranking issues that go back farther than "weeks".

As I've also posted in other places, I work on dozens of sites.

[potentialgeek]

But we just bought 3 sponsor spots on BOTW categories a couple of weeks ago and yesterday plummeted 200+ places in the SERPS.

BOTW gave me a bounce a year ago but it was a short bounce and then it seemed to have no value. I didn't renew the subscription and cancelled another sub for a different site.

However, I doubt it would be seen as a worthy of a large penalty. It's one of the oldest and least scammy/spammy paid directories. Google would likely go after a lot of other paid directories before it went after BOTW.

[edited by: tedster at 5:37 pm (utc) on May 18, 2010]
[edit reason] moved from another location [/edit]

[tedster]

It seems to me that there can't be a connection between the sponsorship at BOTW and a ranking drop weeks later. For that to happen Google would need to actively PENALIZE new directory customers. And if that were going on, the cry would be loud and fierce all over the web, and Google would also be a total fool. And they're not. I've got to see this as a timing coincidence.

[aristotle]

Actually many of the listings in BOTW were not even paid for, because there is a free submission option for non-commercial sites. One of my sites was listed after I made a free submission.

Also, many of the listings in BOTW are for authority sites that were never submitted at all, but were created by directory employees to try to improve its usefulness as a resource.

So unless Google can tell the difference between a paid listing and a free listing, then I doubt that they would hand out any punishments.

[internetheaven]

Only new sites that rank well (which is rare) would notice the drop. e.g. if a site has the right domain name, keywords, content, title and a handful of good backlinks they might get in the top 10-20 for a few keyphrases. THEN, after buying a BOTW link they notice a drop. On the other hand: many new sites are not built that well and if a BOTW listing is the first point of call whilst that new site is already at #250 then no drop would be noticed really. That is another phenomenon being thrown around the boards that even after buying a BOTW link they still cannot seem to climb the ranks which one would expect at least a little movement even just from a single PR3-PR6 authority site link.

BOTW is simply SEO link buying and over the past year they've really moved from directory to paid links as seen by the increase in marketing towards gaining advertisers through Adwords rather than any effort to get actual foot traffic (e.g. they advertise under "paid directory" but not things like "travel blogs").

So unless Google can tell the difference between a paid listing and a free listing, then I doubt that they would hand out any punishments.

They are directly selling (generally unfiltered) Sponsored Links at the top of each page which they have not nofollowed as they should under Google guidelines. I think they've been flaunting themselves in Google's face too much and Google is doing what it said it would do in such cases.

I truely believe that BOTW links have been penalised but a site with good backlinks ("authority") will not be affected, just like most penalties.

I have bought more than 100 BOTW listings in the past three years for various sites and clients. This is not some "ooh, I bought a BOTW listing why am I not #1!?" type rant.

[tedster]

Good points. However, I have not seen any evidence of Google penalizing ANY paid links in recent times. Ignoring them, yes. Playing games with toolbar PR, yes. But not actual penalties, applied against already achieved rankings.

[aristotle]

As I mentioned before, one of my sites was listed after I made a free submission. That was about 18 months ago, and its rankings and traffic are better now than ever, so obviously it hasn't been penalized. And this is not an "authority" site, but a personal site created entirely by me.

[Whitey]

On the contrary , I've wondered if these " grey bar" directory pages of recognised sites pass any influence and link juice. BOTW is one such directory.

Why would you bother ?

[Robert Charlton]

...I've wondered if these " grey bar" directory pages of recognised sites pass any influence and link juice.

That's probably the point of the gray-barring... Google wants you to wonder. I believe it gray-bars pages which resemble directories to put doubt in the minds of those who might be buying links from such pages.

There was a discussion on WebmasterWorld in May 2008, about whether gray-barred Yahoo pages had any PR. Matt Cutts posted to confirm that they did....

Yahoo Directory Gray barred?
http://www.webmasterworld.com/yahoo_search/3641525.htm
[webmasterworld.com...]

...It's possible that Yahoo changed their linking somehow, or that there was an issue on our side with how we canonicalized a url, but I do know that the Yahoo Directory has PageRank in our internal system, so I'll ask folks here about it....

I feel that Matt was fudging about what games Google is playing with the gray bars, but also that he couldn't unjustly leave Yahoo out on the line to dry. Chances are that Yahoo-Google relations were also a big factor.

In my experience, both Yahoo and BOTW do pass influence and link juice. Usual cautions about maintaining a varied link profile still apply.

[walkman]

I have 2 botw links and no problems due to that. Google knows what they do and apparently they think that the $300 and editorial are good enough to ensure some sort of quality.

[internetheaven]

I have 2 botw links and no problems due to that.

Did those sites already have a decent backlink profile BEFORE you got the BOTW links?

[walkman]

One did, the other not really