Does Google penalize if I submit my website to paid directories?

[serenoo]

Do Google penalize (from a SEO point of view) you if submit your website to paid directories?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Not if you are talking about respectable directories.

[serenoo]

Can you define the term "respectable directories"?
or
When a directory is respectable?

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

That's the secret but you could start wish stuff like DMOZ, business.com, the Yahoo directory and pukka business association directories.

[wildbest]

Do Google penalize (from a SEO point of view) you if submit your website to paid directories?

Google penalize all paid links. You're encouraged to use only Google's paid links (aka AdWords).

[imbckagn]

This is an older video [youtube.com...] and post [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com...]

Directory entries are often mentioned as another way to promote young sites in the Google index. There are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet. But there are not many of them in proportion to those of lower quality. If you decide to submit your site to a directory, make sure it's on topic, moderated, and well structured. Mass submissions, which are sometimes offered as a quick work-around SEO method, are mostly useless and not likely to serve your purposes.

Recently Google made an announcement recommending that you submit to quality directories but I can't seem to find it. I was trying to figure out my my directory was getting more action which lead me to finding the post Google made.

[aristotle]

Google has a directory of its own (http://directory.google.com). (It's a free directory that gets its listings from the Open Directory.) If they disapproved of directories, you would think they wouldn't have one themselves.

[tedster]

A "respectable directory" charges a fee for reviewing the site - with no guarantee of being accepted. That is not a paid link in Google's view. For such directories, complaints by people who paid and did not get accepted are like a badge of honor.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Google penalize all paid links. You're encouraged to use only Google's paid links (aka AdWords).

Who told you that?

[wildbest]

Who told you that?

Google.

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact a site's ranking in search results.
...
Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

•Adding a rel="nofollow" attribute to the <a> tag
•Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

[google.com...]

[freelistfool]

Quality directories in your niche will help your rankings as will some of the better known general directories. I wouldn't take the risk with little known general directories. You won't be penalized for links from a paid directory, but depending on the quality you may have wasted your money.

[mrguy]

Actually, Google doesn't want you to promote your site anywhere. According to them build great content and the links will come even though nobody knows about it but in the mean time, they don't mind if you spend lots of money with adwords.

[dvduval]

I recommend that people submit to directories by hand and avoid services like "1000 directories for $10". I don't think there is anything wrong with submitting to a newer directory, and they do popup frequently. What you don't want to do is show that you paid to get a bunch of links on a large network of directories that don't even review the links. If you happen to submit to a couple of lower quality directories, I don't think it will hurt you, but make sure you combine it with submitting to some sites that have strict review process.

[aristotle]

Several years ago some directories, especially so-called bidding directories, were apparently penalized for SELLING links. But as far as I know, the sites of the link buyers weren't penalized, although their links from the penalized directories may have lost their value.

[tedster]

[Buying or selling links that pass PageRank] does not equal [Google penalizes all paid links]. Only paid linking that actually passes PageRank is against their guidleines. And even then, they may or may not penalize the sited involved, and if they do it is not in any one standard way.

[aristotle]

From what I've seen in my reading, Google is a lot more likely to penalize link sellers than link buyers.

[scottsonline]

To me it's all about revenue potential. If you buy a link on a site with 500k views a day whether it's follow or nofollow should have no bearing/penalty on the buyer. You will get real clicks and traffic from it and also brand recognition on some level if done right. Directories - the so called respectable ones has delivered maybe ten clicks a year for the same cost. I can pay yahoo 200-300 a year for 3 clicks or pay a major industry site 30 a month for probably 100 clicks a month. Pagerank or not it's worth a lot more and I shouldn't be penalized in the event some intern forgot to make my advertisement nofollow. I do think this is the way google has gone now and I think ts the right approach.
They know 'quality.'. A major site with a huge diverse user and link base...links out kind from them have value beyond pagerank. A tiny site passing a ton of links...value?

The barometer should be 'can this link bring the receiver clicks/revenue" if the answer is yes it's a good link paid or not.

That said the top terms in our industry are taken by those buying huge amounts of links. What I've noticed lately though is they are links from good solid sites, even though they are paid I've got no problems with it. Plenty of meat on the bone for everyone and I think part of the throttling we see is googling being fair to everyone.

1000 forum links or 2000 comments should have no value as it's unnatural (in most cases) and I'm sure google is sniffing this out well now.

[wildbest]

[Buying or selling links that pass PageRank] does not equal [Google penalizes all paid links].

I've just responded to OP:

Do Google penalize (from a SEO point of view) you if submit your website to paid directories?

Google are quite clear on that. If you do buy links for SEO this is in violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines. You're allowed to buy links ONLY for advertising and tell Google those links are only for advertising. Directories have to ad 'nofollow' tags or you have to exclude landing page in robots.txt file!

Since Google have monopoly on online advertising and advertising on paid directories is just a waste of money, practically all online advertisers are channeled to AdWords!

[Robert Charlton]

Google are quite clear on that.

Actually, no, the Webmaster Guidelines overall are kind of obscure about paid directory links, and it's hard to find a good, clear reference... but I've heard so many people use the paid-directories-equal-paid-links-argument that it really makes my head hurt.

Tedster points out the important distinctions....

A "respectable directory" charges a fee for reviewing the site - with no guarantee of being accepted. That is not a paid link in Google's view. For such directories, complaints by people who paid and did not get accepted are like a badge of honor.

Here's a YouTube video on the subject, where Matt Cutts describes Google's considerations at some length...

What types of directories are seen as sources of paid links?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Pu1YWcIh04 [youtube.com]

Matt also gets into some of the major points in this discussion about paid links on his blog...

How to report paid links
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/how-to-report-paid-links/ [mattcutts.com]

I'm not going to quote all that Matt says, because that would be more than fair use, but here are some highlights. Search the quotes on the page and find the rest....

Q: ...can you talk about the role of directories, some of whom charge for a reviewer to evaluate them?
A: ...When considering submitting to a directory, I'd ask questions like:
- Does the directory reject urls?...
- What is the quality of urls in the directory?...
- If there is a fee, what's the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.

....If you put on your user hat and ask "Does this seem like a high-quality directory to me?" you can usually get a pretty good sense as well....

In general, I should note, a high quality directory is also likely to edit your listing. As things turn out, that will ultimately help you with Google, as your listing is more likely to be unique than it might be if it weren't independently edited.

[wildbest]

The question here is not what's a "respectable directory" and what's not? Question is what's the point of submitting your website to paid directories from a SEO point of view? My answer is: there is no SEO value. It can't help, it can only harm your SEO efforts.

To put it on different context, what will happen if a "respectable directory" doesn't comply with Google's Webmaster Guidelines mentioned above? IMHO there is no doubt what's the Google answer to this question!

[freelistfool]

Read imbckagn's quote from the webmastercentralblog again.

There are great, topical directories that add value to the Internet... If you decide to submit your site to a directory, make sure it's on topic, moderated, and well structured.

Then think about directories from Google's point of view. They love well categorized and targeted niche directories for the simple reason that those sites have a human editor building a seed set for their algo. "Topical directories that add value to the Internet" tell Google which sites are related in content.

Google treats web directories the same way as they do any other site on the internet. If it is high quality and related it will help your site to have a link.

It's highly unlikely that you'll be penalized for paying for a link in a web directory. If that were the case, all your competitor would have to do is go pay for a bunch of spammy junk links to your website in web directories to get your site penalized. More likely is Google will recognize the pattern of a bunch of new links from paid web directories and ignore or discount the link juice from those links.

[mrguy]

So then, what if I'm just buying a link for advertising and don't care about PR and PR was never discussed or mentioned.

How does Google know this?

So, I'm not supposed to advertise my site at all according to Google right?

I think about my site, then what my visitors would want, then maybe what the search engines want. I don't care what Google thinks as long as my visitors are happy and if buying links on a site that has a similar demographic and their visitors would enjoy my content, then do you really think I give a cra* what Google thinks?

Google is not the Internet and they don’t control who or what you link to. Sure, they don’t have to include you in their engine and that’s fine. There are plenty of other sources of traffic for example “buying links on similar sites with the same interest”.

[Robert Charlton]

My answer is: there is no SEO value.

I can testify from personal experience, without naming the directories, that I have observed rankings boosts that I can correlate with listings in at least three separate directories, all of them old, well-established, and well-edited, all charging for review, and none willing to accept the listing without editing to conform to their own editorial standards.

The sites involved were all excellent sites on their way up. The question here might be 'what's an excellent site?'.

[tedster]

So, I'm not supposed to advertise my site at all according to Google right?

That's a severe distortion of Google's policy. Advertising links should be purchased for getting clicks and not for boosting your rankings. That's all there is to it.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

Question is what's the point of submitting your website to paid directories from a SEO point of view? My answer is: there is no SEO value. It can't help, it can only harm your SEO efforts.

This is intriguing. On what evidence circumstantial or otherwise do you base this on?

[Timetraveler]

With 99% certainty, a Yahoo directory link will boost your ranking. I've watched it give position boosts on 3 sites I've submitted throughout the years.

[SEOPTI]

IP diversity is still important, I would go ahead and submit your site to 2000 directories for $40.

Most of the URLs will not be indexed at all so you will probably end up with 10-50 URLs in the index if you do not backlink your backlinks which is still improtant. Use some social bookmarking sites, they do not pass any value but are good for indexing your URLs.

I found out IP diversity has a huge impact on the number of URLs which will be indexed. So if you go for the long tail it is mandatory.

All this theoretical disussion ... I don't like it, just spend $40 and try it.

And BTW, a Yahoo directory listing will really boost your ranking. You don't need to renew it, they will keep your site in the index even if you do not renew your listing. So it is a $299 lifetime deal, sounds good to me :) They have a crappy horrible interface and the editor will move your listing into a deep directory but it is still worth the money.
The URLs with the Yahoo directory categories are sorted by Page Rank so if your PR is 3 or less I would not recommend to submit.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

You don't need to renew it

I didn't renew this year. My subscription was up on 13 October and the website is still in there so this may be true.

[satechheads]

google does not penalize for paid backlinks. It treats a paid backlink from a high PR site the same as it would a non paid backlink from a high PR site.

If you are not planning on creating many organic backlinks by submitting articles, writing blogs, posting on forums, commenting on blogs and forums then you are still far better off getting paid backlinks through yahoo places or the BBB than doing nothing at all.

There are many sites that will sit in the number one organic spot having done no seo at all except for having a paid yahoo places account.

But if you are in a competetive niche then that yahoo places listing is not going to do a whole lot for you.

[BeeDeeDubbleU]

google does not penalize for paid backlinks. It treats a paid backlink from a high PR site the same as it would a non paid backlink from a high PR site.

Can you back that up?