DirectoryBlog.WebProNews.com

I wrote about this the other day on WebProNews, but Google is no longer suggesting that you should be listed in relevant directories. In fact, they’ve even removed the suggestion from their webmaster guidelines, as Brian Ussery noticed. The page used to have bullet points for:

- Have other relevant sites link to yours.

- Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

Those points are now gone in what would appear to be a slap in the face of directories, but SEO folks are the ones really irritated. Google doesn’t appear to see it as a slap in the face so much, but more of simply a non-needed guideline.

Barry Schwartz points to a quote from Google’s John Mueller in a Google Groups thread:

“I wouldn’t necessarily assume that we’re devaluing Yahoo’s links, I just think it’s not one of the things we really need to recommend,” said Mueller. “If people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors (I had a visitor from the DMOZ once), then it’s obviously fine to get listed there. It’s not something that people have to do though :-).”

Mueller also asks for feedback, “What do you think - does it make sense? What else should we change / add / remove?”

Regardless of what guidelines are on the page, a relevant link is a relevant link. There are still directories like our own eBusiness Directory that don’t offer paid links, and keep the listings quality without getting flooded by spammy and irrelevant ones by using a strict human-edited approval process.

There is going to be a lot of outrage over this, but is it really necessary? Perhaps too much focus has been put on directories like DMOZ anyway.

You may have noticed that some of the directories I mentioned in the Directory Explosion post (also featured in the newsletter) were not working. We were having some problems on the back end, and I apologize to any of you who were inconvenienced by this.

According to Chad our support guy, who posted on the iEntry Directory Portal blog, all of it is fixed now. He writes:

If anyone is still having any further issues submitting their business’ website(s) to our directories, please let us know on the iEntry Directory Portal Forum under the Niche Directories category, and I will promptly resolve this issue for you. Please be sure to include the name of the directory in question on the subject line of your post.

Sorry again.

iEntry Network recently purchased the site PureBlogging.com, which I am now writing for. It is basically a blog about blogging, with tips on subjects like writing, blog promotion, and blog design as well as blog news and trends.

I’m only on my third post so far, but there will be many more to come. If anyone here writes for a blog or is interested in blogging in general, check it out.

Not much to say regarding the eBusiness Directory today, other than since my recent post about the amount of comment spam on this blog, the amount has increased significantly. I guess I should’ve seen that coming.

I doubt that any of you spammers out there are actually reading this, but you’re wasting your time submitting pointless spam to the comments of this blog because they will not be published.

In the event that you are reading this, I’m just trying to be a nice guy and help you out. That’s right, I’m helping the spammers. You’re going to spam blogs regardless, so I want to give you plenty of time to spam others, by letting you know that you don’t have to spam this one, because you won’t be getting any business from it.  You might as well concentrate and spend that time well pursuing other places where your spam might get through.

In case you couldn’t pick up on it, I’m being sarcastic. I don’t condone blog spam.  But seriously. When you spam this blog, the comments just sit in the queue until I personally hit “approve” on them. Your spam comments will not be approved. That’s that. I appreciate that you’re trying to get some sales leads or something this way, and shockingly, there are apparently people that actually do make purchases based on spam. I assume that is why you keep doing it, but to prevent any more time from being wasted, don’t bother leaving it here.

Admittedly, the Walker Texas Ranger and Boz Scaggs spam messages were amusing if not perplexing, but being spam, I still couldn’t allow them to fly.  Anyhow, good luck in your endeavors, I hope plenty of people find comments on directory blogs to be suitable venues to make pharmaceutical purchases from (I mean, why go to Rite-Aid when you can just click on a link in a comment about Walker Texas Ranger on a blog post about directory software?), but they’re going to have to seek these out on other blogs.

Thanks!