The Future For Directories
Now the dust has settled regarding Google’s stance on directories, what does the future hold for the sector?
In my own opinion the move made by Google was a master stroke for various reasons.
If a directory owner had the capital to list their site on 1,000’s of paid directories, their website was bound to rank well, regardless of the optimisation of the site, the amount of traffic the site delivered and the strength of the inner pages.
This is history now, Google have adjusted their platform so only genuine directories perform well. I have noticed Google now displays links based on quality not page rank. Google is now indexing more and more links from free directories even though they display little to no page ranking. This is fantastic news for the general public, however not so good for directory owners.
I believe in the future Google will continue to stamp down on paid directories as well as penalising sites who pay for links. So how can directories be of benefit if less and less people want to purchase links?
The answer to this is simple, people need to look away from the direct benefit and look towards in-direct benefit, I will try to explain. I own a free reciprocal link business services directory. I gain benefit in terms of my link building process is totally automated through the directory and content is added on a regular basis. By using this tactic as well as others I have transformed my business from being an average ranked business services website, to being one of the highest ranked in the UK.
All online businesses have to have a degree of flexibility, simply because the goal posts change on a regular basis. By being flexible and forward thinking it is possible to use a bad situation to your benefit. For sure people will continue to purchase links from directories, even when doing so will damage their sites ranking, but eventually the stream of customers will dry up. The majority of paid directories will have to change their business model if they want to be around in a few years time.
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