Ok Kiddies...

I'm sure most of you have seen this by now. As always..I have my own thoughts/agreement/disagreements with Rand's latest posting. Unlike my norm...I am going to refrain from posting my 2cents just yet. I want to see which of you have your panties all in a wad and which of you are having a blow out party celebrating.

So for those of you whom haven't read it yet...here is the link:

SEOmoz | What Makes a Good Web Directory, and Why Google Penalized Dozens of Bad Ones

Go read and come back to post your thought!!
Looking forward to them.

tom

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Wait for Bloggy Bloggy a Blog or Maybe not a Blog to post a page or 2 about it, will need some time here.

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Rand is smack on!! But many of us have being saying this for months/years!!!

For my particular situation, the response would be 'so what'?

While all of the 'bad directory' attributes Rand identifies probably exist in what some identify as 'bad directories', I think it's quite possible that a few apply to 'good directories' as well. I mean, web directories consist of links to other sites, so I don't think it's unusual to 'market' these to webmasters, though I can see where how this is done could be an issue for some. I also don't see a problem with offering 'featured' links, although it's difficult to determine whether Rand is referring to these in his 'premium sponsorship' comments.

Anyway, everything that follows is just my, perhaps uninformed, opinion. I haven't been affected by recent events and nothing I say is intended to condone any directory activity that may have seemed dubious to others.

I'm not sure how accurate this observation may be re: the ranking of sites however, if there's a problem, I'd expand it to 'links' in general, as for the most part these have never been an accurate representation of anything more than a specialty or true authority site's 'strength' and certainly aren't now, directories or not.

Webmasters have always offered links to sites that might be of use to their users, e.g., Tucows, and traded links with other sites that might attract visitors who'd be interested in their own. For the trades, the overall 'quality' of the other site might not have mattered as much as the likely visitors, so the presence of the link had nothing to do with anything approximating a 'vote' for the strength or value of the other site.
Okay, if 'links' are presumably a 'vote' by a site owner for another site, there's a 'non-shady' way to build them? Either the site owner is adding the link on their own initiative with no thought of search engines in mind, i.e., simply because it provides value to their visitors, or they're not. If the latter, and whether paid or not, it's simply part of the site owner's strategy to game the search engines for their own benefit.

Link-building, whether through directories or not, with any thought of search engine impact simply doesn't align to the original intent in using links as some indication of the linked-too site's value.

I guess 'shady' depends on perspective however, to my mind the 'fundamental problem' in the current day is using 'links' in an algorithm that assesses the 'value' of a site and the 'link-building' activities this creates that essentially render the algorithm useless.

Dropping the whole concept would bring things back into equilibrium; directories would go back to simply being compendiums of sites categorized for easy access; used by site owners simply to get visibility for their site and any 'links' in the directory would presumably be there for reasons other than those motivated by search engine placement.

I'd suggest that if the main search engine in question wants to have real 'credibility', the whole 'link' as a 'vote' and PR, at least as publicly available, concepts need to go. What exactly is there about any form of link-building that isn't manipulative if this is done for any reason that involves search engine rank?

Of course if 'credibility' is really an issue, some search engines might be advised to first look at the quality of the 'sponsored results' that accompany their searches, as there doesn't seem to be much 'quality control' in this area.

And while you can penalize others for trying to game what are supposed to be 'credible' results, what kind of a message is really being sent when it's okay for you to make money advertising often dubious sites along side the supposedly 'credible' search results?

I found some of the comments to Rand's post interesting, particularly in reference to how some of the SEO marketers' clients wouldn't be accepted into the 'quality' niche directories discussed.

It seems to me that if the SEO 'industry' doesn't have a problem accepting money to optimize sites that others would not perceive as adding value to the web, regardless of whether this is done in a 'search engine approved' manner, it really isn't in a position to be judging the actions of others.

Following on some of TC's comments in another thread, the truth is that the best thing for the web would probably be if all those currently trying to make money from (rather than on) it, just took themselves off-line and left it open to those who just want to build web sites because they're interested in a certain topic, like back in the early nineties, rather than with a hope of earning 'adsense income'; 'income while they sleep' or with any of the other nonsense that permeates the so-called 'on-line marketing' sector of the web.

I include 'SEO professionals' in this.

Yes, it seems to me that getting all the 'make money from the web' folks off the web, including myself (if I ever made any), and letting 'good' content become king again would quickly resolve all the 'search engine manipulation' issues and the quality of the web would improve for all.

Maybe Rand will make a post to that effect at some future point.

thanks for the reading...

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