link popularity ratings

niche directories

[billy fullerton]

What popularity if any, is given to linking to niche directories? It is obviously inbound links and relevant to the site but do the SE's give any credit for it?

[agerhart]

Billy,

Yes, they are given more weight and are deemed as better inbound links than ones that are off topic. When you have links that are relevant it will strengthen your theme and your site. It is better to have 100 on topic links than 500 off-topic links

[rogerd]

Agerhart is right about on-topic links being valuable. Niche directories are often good link sites, since, going back to the hub theory, they contain many outbound links on a single major theme and may also be linked to by many sites.

One plus is that you can often control your link text more easily in a niche directory than you can in Yahoo or LS. That is, Yahoo may restrict your site name to "Acme, Inc." if that is the company name, while you might get "Acme Steel Widgets" into a smaller directory that's not as fussy.

Niche directories that have spiderable pages and links are clearly more desirable than ones that have dynamic pages with complex query strings and impenetrable script links.

[billy fullerton]

Should it then mean that every new link building campaign should be started by listing the site on all of these niche directories, and each one be counted as a link towards link popularity?

[agerhart]

Yep

[billy fullerton]

Thanks, I thought I was on the right track but I had to check

[agerhart]

Glad we could help Billy ;)

[rogerd]

Billy, some of these niche directories can actually generate traffic, too. If you can get a bunch of good listings, you might find it is a small but steady source of visitors, with much less volatility than the SEs. Definitely make them a starting point!

[billy fullerton]

I've always listed clients on the niche directories while looking for related sites but never counted them towards link popularity or the contracted total, so I guess I've been doing it the hard way.

If i'm contracted for 100 links I'll do that plus maybe 30 directory listings on top that I never counted.

No wonder clients keep coming back!:-)

[Brett_Tabke]

And when other directories go link raiding, the first place they start is with the competitions niche directory. Get a good directory listing and the links can slowly multiply.

[paynt]

I agree Brett. When I'm adding sites to ODP that's often where I start looking.

[billy fullerton]

I know that listing sites to directories more than once can result in a penalty.

Can someone explain if this is the case with the ODP as they have a lot of niche directories. If I submit a site to the main directory can I then list it again in spacific areas / subject directories ran by the ODP?