Online Directory - Does having too many outbound links hurt ranking?

[dailypress]

hi all,

I created my first online directory where I categorize popular websites for a niche market based on Country and States. I was wondering if I would get penalized for a one page site (excluding the About, Contact, T&S pages) that currently has over 200 outbound links? I plan to expand and include more links.

If I receive enough backlinks do you think it would be ok or should I include a blog to increase the number of pages so Google doesnt think its a spam page full of links?

Lets say my site is something like: Mexican Restaurants Listing. My visitor wants to find the location of local restaurants and not read about it on a blog, however, someone (so called an SEO expert) suggested to include a blog to get more traffic and not get penalized for a one page website.

Any suggestions?

thank in advance for your time and feedback.

[Robert Charlton]

As I look at it, this would be a problematic setup, but the problem isn't with the number of outbound links per se from the page. The problem is more that having all your listings on one page doesn't make for user-friendly or Google-friendly organization.

In the case of restaurants, you'd want to organize by countries, states, and probably also by cities... depending on how these things are most frequently searched... and having listings from many different areas all on one page prevents clear cut divisions into those geographically organized categories.

[dailypress]

Well instead of adding inner pages, I created a drop down menu where when you click on the Country, the list of states drop down and then the listing. They are all drop down menus where the final listing consists of external links.

[piatkow]

You want more than just external links.

I have done a similar thing with music clubs and venues on different sites over the years and one thing that hasn't changed is that to rank, a page with a lot of links needs content around the anchor text. In my case I link the club name and then have address, box office phone and day of week.

I have always made sure of a decent amount of content on the home page with only internal links.

[netmeg]

First of all, never never include a blog for SEO purposes; include a blog if you have something to say.

Second of all, as mentioned above, the problem isn't having a lot of outbound links (I have thousands on my sites) it's having *only* outbound links. I know that's what you want to put up, and that's fine, but Robert is right, that's probably not going to be considered a very good user experience. And drop downs with that many links aren't great either - I used them for years and it was only after I took them out that I heard all the complaints and relief that they were gone.

[Planet13]

" And drop downs with that many links aren't great either - I used them for years and it was only after I took them out that I heard all the complaints and relief that they were gone. "

I would imagine with more and more people using mobile devices, this would be even more the case.

I know that FOR ME using a smartphone on a mega drop down menu was a nightmare.

[vandelayweb]

Robert and piatkow have the right thoughts here.

Having a one page site is extremely user unfriendly and creates a poor user experience. If the user has to dig through that page to find the information they are seeking, they will just click on to the next resource. You have less than a second to grab the attention of that user. With a massive page of links, you've effectively lost them.

Second, you have to ask what kind of value you are adding to the web on the whole (this is the question Google asks when figuring out where to rank you) with this website. Does it really answer the question the user came looking for. Better yet, does it go above and beyond to answer questions the user didn't even know to ask.

Per your original outbound linking question, you can always nofollow all of the external links out if you are worried this will cause problems. A lot of directory-type sites do this.

[dailypress]

Thank you all for your feedback. I will have to think of a better solution. However, since I paid a lot of money for this premium domain, I am a bit scared to further develop and prefer to wait a bit until I come up with a better idea and a bit more money to further invest.

[aristotle]

I like one-page websites if they're well-organized. The page needs to be divided into logical sections, each with its own heading, and you need to have a "table of contents" at the top, with links that jump down to the various sections. This makes it easy for users to find what they want quickly, since they don't have to wait for a new page to load. I did a small site like this a few years ago, and it's done well in the search engines overall. It also has about 140 outbound links on the page, and that has never caused a problem or penalty.

[Planet13]

"Any suggestions?"

Make your site as user friendly as possible.

Whether a page has 2 links on it or 200, make sure that a 6 year old (or a 75-year-old) can find exactly what they want as quickly as possible.

If that means spreading the listings on multiple pages, then so be it.

Also, make sure it is extremely easy for your visitors to promote your site (share it socially).