Be careful about link directories

[toolman]

I tuned up a Zeus very well targeted and it did it's thing collecting sites along the parameters I set up.

I created my own pages and used the descriptions provided by Zeus.

Now in Google and Fast I have lost several top positions to the sites they picked up from my directories.:(

Maybe I should be an engineer tuning the algo's for an se.

<added> I seriously question the effectiveness of link directories anyway</added>

[IanTurner]

You have to be very careful with outbound links as these can benefit your competitors, best outbound links I find are gov and edu sites on topic

[rcjordan]

>seriously question the effectiveness of link directories
>
They work, but are tricky. I didn't approach them to boost pagerank, I saw the descriptive text and links as content to feed the spiders. The hallway site I mentioned in the how deep will spider read [webmasterworld.com] thread is a link directory that's really starting to pull in the traffic for me by ranking well enough on its own. Of course, it's referring traffic to some other third party sites that I choose to list, so that could be viewed as a negative.

>lost several top positions to the sites they picked up from my directories
>
That's one of the reasons I chose Links2. It uses cgi redirects to count the clicks, so I'm not providing a direct link. On pages that I want to be spidered, I code in a link.

[IanTurner]

What is Links2??

[rcjordan]

[gossamer-threads.com...]

Links V2.0 = perl version

[billy fullerton]

Link directories are not a bad source of inbound links, they may even at times produce some traffic! However if you place an outbound link to one you risk more than you'll ever hope to gain.

If you use an automated application to take control of your link generation you will lose the advantage sooner or later, there's no shortcuts if you want to stay on the front page.

[billy fullerton]

[rcjordan]

>automated application to take control of your link generation you will lose the advantage

Yes, I'll probably add an automated harvester for collecting links/content but will build the outbound directory under strict editorial control.

[billy fullerton]

>build the outbound directory under strict editorial control.

Exactly, there's no other way.

[rogerd]

>build the outbound directory under strict editorial control.

As everything on the site should be... :)