The Value of Directory Links at Vilesilencer
The top search experts know that links are a measure of popularity and that not all links are created equal. It can be relatively simple for a person to spot a paid link and discredit it, but much more complicated for Google’s algorithms to pick up on one.
I must give credit to Google for discounting many paid links that do exist. Furthermore, I have faith that Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the other search engines will discover additional ways at detecting paid links versus links that a webmaster or site owner adds because they are truly of value to a page’s topic. With all this in mind why do local national and international search engine marketers continue to pay for links that are destined to become worthless? For starters, the smart ones don’t, they skip these links entirely. As for everyone else, lack of knowledge is the only reasonable conclusion that I can form. Let’s take a look at a specific example that contains a mixture of free and paid directory links.
Info.vilesilencer.com has a listing of directories that are “search engine friendly” and encourage these same directories to place the logo below back to their directory list.
I seriously question the SEO friendliness of these links. It is only a matter of time before Google realizes these directories for exactly what they are; an artificial way to build link popularity. Since they are all networked to each other it would not be difficult for Google to massively remove them and adjust its algorithm accordingly. My best advice is to stay clear of all the directories on this list. Adding a site to these directories might help it temporarily and may never hurt it permanently; I sincerely doubt these listings will improve a website’s search engine positions in the long term.
