RefreshClassifieds

BusinessDirectoriez.com launched today with a focus on providing SEO links related to key topics to business sites.  While directories have long been a good source for quality SEO links we haven’t seen such an aggressive SEO focus before.  The sites lets business purchase links related to specific keywords.  For example “Motorcycle Trader” is one of the top links and actually links off to “www.usedmotorcycleforsale.ca”.

Pricing for links seems to be flat rates right now at $2 per link but the site pricing uses a bidding system.   Businesses will be expected to bid on popular keywords.  The Site also features deep links to increase your keyword ranking in search engines.

While the site is fairly well designed its not clear  how they hope to maintain any user traffic with the SEO business model.  Without some user traffic we don’t think it will be too long before search engines start to decrease the relevance of these links and the entire Business Directoriez.com site.

Over the past few weeks Google has been re-evaluating how to they rank different web directories, specifically those that are being used exclusively to get high search engine rank. For years its been a common strategy to get your web site listed into as many web directories as possible and use the combined inbound links to increase your page rank. Google appears to be changing the rules on this a little and we have the following recommendations for evaluating web directories:

1. Quality of the Companies and Links

What are the quality of the Companies and Links in the directory like? Do they all resolve? Be wary of sites that have a lot of links to companies with ad specific landing pages or under review just don’t really appear to be legitimate businesses.

2. Fee Process

Is there a fee to submit? If the fee is setup exclusively to ensure search engine ranking or covers multiple directory sites be wary. The fee should be structure should be setup such that you are paying for someone to review your company and ensure it is legitimate. If you are paying for anything else as part of the submission, like inbound links etc.. be concerned.

3. Rejection Process

Mos legitimate directories will have a rejection process and a process to mediate rejection. If the directory you a submitting to guarantees acceptance or offers assurance about increased page rank, we recommend moving on to another service.

With these quick steps you should be able to find legitimate Web Directories that can help both your business and your search engine ranking.

When the web first started online directories were all the rage and many of the leading directories still exit but are consumers using them.  For example the Yahoo Directory or the Open Directory Project have millions of business listings but are they every used.  Today it seems that most of these directories attract businesses that are more interested in increasing their search engine ranking.  Google for example puts a higher price on links from directories as they show the company to be more reputable.

With the popularity and improvements to search engines it seems unlikely that anyone is using these directories as their structured.  For example Google just launched an update to their own directory based on the Open Directory Project.  The first option on the directory is to search the directory but Google still presents all the different directory categories for people to browse.  Does anyone every browse these categories?  It took me 8 clicks to get to local listings for “Toronto” .    I think most people would prefer to search but what is the advantage of searching the directory vs the default Google search?

A quick search comparing Google.com and Directory.Google.com for Dentists Show in Toronto displayed the following:

The results are similar but I think the Google Search actually provides a better connection with local businesses.  Google includes a map and automatically connects the user to Local Search because I’ve entered “Toronto” as part of my search.  The Directory listings contain no map and no connection to local search.

Most of the successful online business directories, including the Yellow Pages, have adopts a more search oriented approach to business listings and abandoned the directory browsing methodology.  Its not clear to me why search sites like Google see any value in this out of date methodology.

Most websites today depend on search engine traffic and monitoring your search engine strategy can be a complicated process. For classified sites it can be even more difficult since they cover a wide variety of merchandise and search keywords. There are 5 basic steps you can take to ensure you’re aware of your search engine status:

1. Focus your effort

Depending on your geographic region its also important to understand the dominate search site. For example Google in Canada has nearly 60% of all search engine traffic so your focus for a Canadian Classified site should be on Google. You can use your sites traffic logs as an indicator but a better strategy would be to find a broader outlook that covers many web sites in your region.

2. Search for Items

One easy way to measure your Classified site is to search for items typically found in your ads. This will give you an accurate measure of how the search site is seeing your ad content. If you’re site doesn’t rank highly on the search results, you have work to do. One common mistake is to search for your company name and assuming everything is good with your strategy. This not an accurate test as most companies will rank high for the name but this won’t help you for users that don’t your company.

3. Links are your friends

A good way to think of links as a vote for your site. The most votes you have the higher your regard with most search sites. You can monitor the number of links your have with most major search engines.

4. Indexed Pages

Content is king with search sites and one of the easy ways to measure your search success is the number of pages captured or indexed by the search site. You can measure pages indexed against the number of Classified ads or the number of pages your site contains. When doing this comparison besure to include dynamically generator pages like search result pages.

5. Invite the spiders

Classified sites are in a continual change as new ads are added and removed. It you to be that you had to wait for the search spiders to visit your site, Today most search sites provide the ability to submit an XML sitemap showing all the webpages you want the spiders to visit. The XML sitemap can also contain the priority of pages that you want the spiders to visit. The Google sitemap interface also provides a number of tools to monitor your site, see error messages from the spiders and how often they are visiting your site.