Interesting Changes in Citations and Links this year.
Last year, as a matter of practice , when we did on line visibility programs for clients we added directory links to many of the major on line directories, yellow pages, and other local web sites. We would then track the traffic from each (as part of the analytics) and quality scoring. Part of that was watching the back links report to see when the listing, citation or link was “indexed”.
We do much more than just this process during on line visibility programs, so we have a very rounded profile to drive traffic to a clients site.
The interesting thing is, most of the local directory and y.p sites are no longer showing up as links, or as indexed, and the traffic to a clients site from these sources is way down
Here is an example. Hot Frog has traditional been a good citation site and gets a lot of traffic. But sine January, we have not seen a clients listing appear as a link to there site, and traffic is almost non existent.
This listing has been live for almost three months. No sign of it any where on Google Web Master, SEOmoz reports and any other reports we use.
I could add 10 more examples here. But the point being, has the search world stopped recognizing this directory listings? And if so how valuable are they to driving traffic to a site.
Let me know what you have seen.
Three words – “Google Panda Update”!
http://www.seroundtable.com/sistrix-google-panda-uk-13270.html
Steve… great new site ! http://www.digitaleel.com/ BTW
Yes… I saw the article, but wasn’t sure if it was effecting “citations” in addition to links.
Plus we saw this trend back in February, far before the Panda change. No question a lot of folks are wasting a lot of time on pre-Panda strategies. Will be interesting to see if a link to a listing has an effect.
When’s the next USA today article about you guys?
Post-Panda, a lot of affected sites are going “no-follow” on links. This might be a factor.
Good backlink site (shows anchor text): http://www.backlinkwatch.com/
Latest USA Today video: http://www.usatoday.com/video/index.htm#/USA+TODAY%27s+Small+Business+Challenge/922660264001
Next article appears on Monday, 5/9 in the Money section of USA Today.
Love the USA Today video. Mind if I post it on my face book, twitter… you know the usual suspects?
I have used back link for fast and easy back link reports. Have you tried http://www.linkdiagnosis.com . You need the fire fox add on, but it does give you P.R. , Follow no follow , Anchor, and number of pages indexed. You can register and save all the reports. We use SEOmoz as well. Gives all the SEemoz ranks on each link.
AS for the no follow after Panda, that’s one of the interesting things. These links exist on the directories, and are follow, they just are not indexed, as far as I can see. So is Google just doing do not index tags on these pages?
Directories have been out of favor for backlink purposes for years now any good SEO know that! Unless, the directory is human edited it will have no value for SEO purposes. That’s from Matt Cuts.
Getting traffic from directories has also been useless for just as long. Google killed directory traffic by making them obsolete. Many of them then became useless link generators. Just because a link is Do Follow does not mean that it has value, again, all good SEO’s know this!
Citations are a different matter, Local directories are very useful for citations especially if they offer reviews.
The Panda update relates to article sites and low quality content.
Urban,
Good points. This thread has all to do with the citations. A Citation clearly can not be
of any value if it’s never indexed. Any good SEO knows this. 😉
So the point is, have all the changes included Google not indexing directory listings. This would have a large impact of traffic from the site (as that’s one of the large reasons of SEO) and Citations for the business.
As for getting traffic from directories, we still see many high value (good traffic) directory sites for clients. You have to be very picky, and your correct, only use human edited sites with a real industry focus. I think you are referring to “link Farms” as much as directories. After all DMOZ is a GREAT directory.
I did a blog on Do Follow and No Follow links a month ago. The general thought by the most respected national SEO experts, (SEOmoz, Majestic SEO, SEO Book) and others, is that many no follow links actually do pass PR. ( P.R. stands for Page Rank).
In another blog I mentioned a very important principle we utilize for SEO, and Matt Cutts agrees, and has said this often. Good SEO is really about promoting your site with out the consideration of how Google or any other search engine is going react to your action.
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