Value of a non-static link

[rhys]

Sometimes I am asked by companies to reciprocate a link to a website that has placed me in their "directory". The directory is a query based search tool where you enter a parameter (e.g. location) and it spits out company options and a link to my website. Does this provide any SEO value for me whatsoever?

What do you SEO guys do in the case of requests like this? Also, if I wanted to set up this same kind of "directory" for my own sites, is there something off the shelf I can use to do this?

[clipper]

Originally Posted by rhys

Sometimes I am asked by companies to reciprocate a link to a website that has placed me in their "directory". The directory is a query based search tool where you enter a parameter (e.g. location) and it spits out company options and a link to my website. Does this provide any SEO value for me whatsoever?

What do you SEO guys do in the case of requests like this? Also, if I wanted to set up this same kind of "directory" for my own sites, is there something off the shelf I can use to do this?

I'm not an SEO guy, but as a publisher I ignore such requests. I don't think there's much SEO value to directory links. About a year ago, if I remember correctly, two of the biggest independent paid directories were de-indexed from Google completely.

When I was into this kind of thing I used phpLD. It's pretty easy to set up, but it's all manual unless you have the chops to run a script that spits out these request emails. You have to manually approve, review, and it's quite time consuming if you're not building a spam farm. There are a lot of options in the free off the shelf version: paid submissions, reciprocal only, etc.

Many of these, it should be noted, are in the surly business of picking up expired names with residual Google pagerank, then selling off links while the pagerank still remains. Once G updates its PR (every few months), the name loses its pagerank and gets retired.

More at Digital Point.

[mgrohan]

I agree, i think that most of these listings at the directories are irrelevant for SEO benefit. Especially more so in the last year, with big directories getting de-indexed and stripped of google Pagerank.
The only benefit i could see from directory listings now is for traffic, which very very few directories can deliver.

I definitely would not be wasting time responding to this reciprocal link spam. As any reputable, quality site, would not need to be spamming to get links back.

For SEO you would be better of spending time optimizing on page SEO, and trying to get a few quality, relevant links - much better use of time..

[rhys]

Yeah, I don't think I'm explaining it well. This isn't a link farm directory. This is a legitimate website with lots of great information (about asbestos in this case) that maintains a database of disaster remediation companies. I own a site around disaster remediation and they have offered to put my information in the database and a link to my site. However, because a user has to physically search the database to procure my information, I doubt that this link has any SEO value. Anyone have insight on this. Assume the site in question will have a high PR.

[mgrohan]

If it is based on the same topic as your site and it is a useful, informative site. Then yes of course it is beneficial to exchange links with the website whether or not SEO benefit is passed on or not.

If you want to know if any SEO value is passed on. Check if links have rel=nofollow tags, also just because it is a search engine (using a db) does not mean search results are not indexed (maybe they use tag clouds or other things which will lead to the links and get them indexed). Search on google with site: to see if pages are indexed or not.

[clipper]

Originally Posted by rhys

Yeah, I don't think I'm explaining it well. This isn't a link farm directory. This is a legitimate website with lots of great information (about asbestos in this case) that maintains a database of disaster remediation companies. I own a site around disaster remediation and they have offered to put my information in the database and a link to my site. However, because a user has to physically search the database to procure my information, I doubt that this link has any SEO value. Anyone have insight on this. Assume the site in question will have a high PR.

It couldn't hurt, especially if the site has a lot of visitors, it may send traffic.

If your link can only be accessed through a search bar-type query, though, it may provide no "SEO" benefit (there would have to be some external page linking to the page that your link is on in order for the link to be crawled, e.g., home page links to directory links to page your link is on).

[touchring]

Originally Posted by mgrohan

If it is based on the same topic as your site and it is a useful, informative site. Then yes of course it is beneficial to exchange links with the website whether or not SEO benefit is passed on or not.

If you want to know if any SEO value is passed on. Check if links have rel=nofollow tags, also just because it is a search engine (using a db) does not mean search results are not indexed (maybe they use tag clouds or other things which will lead to the links and get them indexed). Search on google with site: to see if pages are indexed or not.

i'm of same opinion. but most importantly, you must check if the site has spam links. any linking to a site with links to spam sites or blacklist domains will incur penalty.

[touchring]

Originally Posted by rhys

Sometimes I am asked by companies to reciprocate a link to a website that has placed me in their "directory". The directory is a query based search tool where you enter a parameter (e.g. location) and it spits out company options and a link to my website. Does this provide any SEO value for me whatsoever?

What do you SEO guys do in the case of requests like this? Also, if I wanted to set up this same kind of "directory" for my own sites, is there something off the shelf I can use to do this?

If you website has high pr, and the directory is of non-related topic, i will ignore if the directory has a lower pr - not worth the risk and not much to gain from.

if yours a new site, it's ok to recipocrate as long as the directory is not blacklisted by google or has links to spammy websites.