Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Is it good practice to still pay for Best of the Web Directory (BOTW) and other similar one's you have to pay for?
-
I know that paid for links are hit by Google, but in the past these directories were okay. What about now?
Thank you.
-
"If you pay for a directory link only to gain position in the SERPs you will most probably not get any ROI"
Meaning if you are on the first page there won`t be ROI? I dont think so!
-
There are exceptions to the "paid for" link rule and I believe this site is one of them as they qualify there links! However whether you'll get ROI from it is another question!
-
Hi,
Well in general I agree with Arjan, I am strongly of the opinion that some directories are still VERY worthwhile, and BOTW is one of them. When you are launching a brand new site, you just aren't going to have a lot of attention and inbound lin opportunities at first. Submitting your site to DMOZ (which is free), Yahoo.dir (Paid), Business.com (Paid), JoeAnt.com (Paid) and yes, BOTW (Paid) are all most definitely worthwhile. IMHO they send a signal to the search engines that you are a legitimate business. That's a very important message to send when you are a startup.
In addition to those I think there are some others that are worth it as well, depending on your particular business, particularly localized directories and directories targeting certain niche markets.
Hope that's helpful!
Dana
-
My advice will be to only pay for directory links that drive enough traffic to your website directly to get a proper ROI.
If you pay for a directory link only to gain position in the SERPs you will most probably not get any ROI.
If you get the link from a directory Google does not like because it is known to be selling links it could even hurt your rankings.In short: Paid directory links are not good for SEO.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
What is SEO best practice to implement a site logo as an SVG?
What is SEO best practice to implement a site logo as an SVG?
Technical SEO | | twisme
Since it is possible to implement a description for SVGs it seems that it would be possible to use that for the site name. <desc>sitename</desc>
{{ STUFF }} There is also a title tag for SVGs. I’ve read in a thread from 2015 that sometimes it gets confused with the title tag in the header (at least by Moz crawler) which might cause trouble. What is state of the art here? Any experiences and/or case studies with using either method? <title>sitename</title>
{{ STUFF }} However, to me it seems either way that best practice in terms of search engines being able to crawl is to load the SVG and implement a proper alt tag: What is your opinion about this? Thanks in advance.1 -
Best Web-site Structure/ SEO Strategy for an online travel agency?
Dear Experts! I need your help with pointing me in the right direction. So far I have found scattered tips around the Internet but it's hard to make a full picture with all these bits and pieces of information without a professional advice. My primary goal is to understand how I should build my online travel agency web-site’s (https://qualistay.com) structure, so that I target my keywords on correct pages and do not create a duplicate content. In my particular case I have very similar properties in similar locations in Tenerife. Many of them are located in the same villa or apartment complex, thus, it is very hard to come up with the unique description for each of them. Not speaking of amenities and pricing blocks, which are standard and almost identical (I don’t know if Google sees it as a duplicate content). From what I have read so far, it’s better to target archive pages rather than every single property. At the moment my archive pages are: all properties (includes all property types and locations), a page for each location (includes all property types). Does it make sense adding archive pages by property type in addition OR in stead of the location ones if I, for instance, target separate keywords like 'villas costa adeje' and 'apartments costa adeje'? At the moment, the title of the respective archive page "Properties to rent in costa adeje: villas, apartments" in principle targets both keywords... Does using the same keyword in a single property listing cannibalize archive page ranking it is linking back to? Or not, unless Google specifically identifies this as a duplicate content, which one can see in Google Search Console under HTML Improvements and/or archive page has more incoming links than a single property? If targeting only archive pages, how should I optimize them in such a way that they stay user-friendly. I have created (though, not yet fully optimized) descriptions for each archive page just below the main header. But I have them partially hidden (collapsible) using a JS in order to keep visitors’ focus on the properties. I know that Google does not rank hidden content high, at least at the moment, but since there is a new algorithm Mobile First coming up in the near future, they promise not to punish mobile sites for a collapsible content and will use mobile version to rate desktop one. Does this mean I should not worry about hidden content anymore or should I move the descirption to the bottom of the page and make it fully visible? Your feedback will be highly appreciated! Thank you! Dmitry
Technical SEO | | qualistay1 -
New theme adds ?v=1d20b5ff1ee9 to all URL's as part of cache. How does this affect SEO
New theme I am working in ads ?v=1d20b5ff1ee9 to every URL. Theme developer says its a server setting issue. GoDaddy support says its part of cache an becoming prevalent in new themes. How does this impact SEO?
Technical SEO | | DML-Tampa0 -
My old URL's are still indexing when I have redirected all of them, why is this happening?
I have built a new website and have redirected all my old URL's to their new ones but for some reason Google is still indexing the old URL's. Also, the page authority for all of my pages has dropped to 1 (apart from the homepage) but before they were between 12 to 15. Can anyone help me with this?
Technical SEO | | One2OneDigital0 -
Does Title Tag location in a page's source code matter?
Currently our meta description is on line 8 for our page - http://www.paintball-online.com/Paintball-Guns-And-Markers-0Y.aspx
Technical SEO | | IstoresincThe title tag, however sits below a bunch of code on line 237
Does the location of the title tag, meta tags, and any structured data have any influence with respect to SEO and search engines? Put another way, could we benefit from moving the title tag up to the top? I "surfed 'n surfed" and could not find any articles about this. I would really appreciate any help on this as our site got decimated organically last May and we are looking for any help with SEO. NIck
0 -
Why am I not showing up in the SERP's or Google Local?
I have been trying to optimise the following site for both Google SERP's and Google Local - Pixel Primate The URL has been around for around 3 years now but they just updated the website and launched it in December 2012. I did the on-page optimisation early in January 2013 and Google seems to have indexed the changes, for the home page at least. One major keyword I am targeting for the home page is 'Web Design Leicester'. I understand that the DA is fairly low (24) so this is something I need to improve. However, I've experienced positive results fairly quickly from just on-page optimisation for other sites I have worked on. The site just doesn't seem to be ranking at all for any keywords. Maybe the industry type is just extremely competitve but I find it very strange to not be visible anywhere in the SERPs. The site does not seem to have any penalties as it ranks for 'Pixel Primate' and all pages appear when doing a site: search. Also what's strange is that I set up the Google Local listing years ago but it doesn't appear anywhere in the local listing, not even when I search for it manually. Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Technical SEO | | CWseo0 -
ECommerce: Best Practice for expired product pages
I'm optimizing a pet supplies site (http://www.qualipet.ch/) and have a question about the best practice for expired product pages. We have thousands of products and hundreds of our offers just exist for a few months. Currently, when a product is no longer available, the site just returns a 404. Now I'm wondering what a better solution could be: 1. When a product disappears, a 301 redirect is established to the category page it in (i.e. leash would redirect to dog accessories). 2. After a product disappers, a customized 404 page appears, listing similar products (but the server returns a 404) I prefer solution 1, but am afraid that having hundreds of new redirects each month might look strange. But then again, returning lots of 404s to search engines is also not the best option. Do you know the best practice for large ecommerce sites where they have hundreds or even thousands of products that appear/disappear on a frequent basis? What should be done with those obsolete URLs?
Technical SEO | | zeepartner1 -
Should we use Google's crawl delay setting?
We’ve been noticing a huge uptick in Google’s spidering lately, and along with it a notable worsening of render times. Yesterday, for example, Google spidered our site at a rate of 30:1 (google spider vs. organic traffic.) So in other words, for every organic page request, Google hits the site 30 times. Our render times have lengthened to an avg. of 2 seconds (and up to 2.5 seconds). Before this renewed interest Google has taken in us we were seeing closer to one second average render times, and often half of that. A year ago, the ratio of Spider to Organic was between 6:1 and 10:1. Is requesting a crawl-delay from Googlebot a viable option? Our goal would be only to reduce Googlebot traffic, and hopefully improve render times and organic traffic. Thanks, Trisha
Technical SEO | | lzhao0