All webmasters know more or less about Google Page Rank. For those who are unaware –ideally, it is a score given by Google to every website to and measured on a scale of 1-10. Despite many controversies and lots of uninformed people/webmaster denouncing PR as being a mere number, Googe Technology notes that it is in the heart of all Google ranking. A higher PR website is said to be of higher quality.

According to commonly believed notion- Google assigns PR to a website based on the total value of votes received from other sites which in turn means summation of PR value of all inbound links to a particular website.

Recently, Google has been indexing contents almost instantly (Matt Cutts says “Minty Fresh Index” ) and crawling links regularly. It is reflected in the change of Google search results that seems to change all the time and which is known as Google dance. It is also believed by many webmasters that, PR Update is dynamic and is always adjusted internally. But Google exports the PR value to its toolbar only once every 3-4 months. Hence, every toolbar export brings in a lot of excitements, joy and heartburn among SEO and webmaster community. Most believe that, it is the result of the link-building and content development work put into the last 10-15 weeks. The previous two toolbar exports happened on 25^th January and 27^th April. But Alas! This time, the toolbar export is taking too long and the community has gone from excited to impatient to a state of surrendering their fate to Google!

So why is the toolbar PR export taking so long this time around (already the longest period in the toolbar export history)? Well there might be lots of reasons in my view.

1. Matt Cutts used his blog to get feedback from webmasters with the post “How To Report Paid Links”. It is often believed that Google uses him to communicate effectively with webmasters. There has been lots of hue-n-cry about it – but the fact remains that Google got what they wanted – Feedback. Based on that feedback – they have changed all their algorithms and are testing them.
2. Due to new Page Rank algorithm, Google is trying it out with the current PR update and testing it. This is very evident with some selective sites getting updated and most sites not getting updated. Once Google feels their new algorithms have passed all tests and should work perfectly the way they want them to work, the toolbar export will be released. will to wait till that happens.

Possible Outcome with the New Algo:

As is the case, Google will discount lots of paid links (as they might deem any) and there will be huge fluctuations of PR of sites and of course SERPs. So far, it has been quite easy to manipulate PR till PR6 as webmasters can make out how many of what PR inbound links are necessary to attain a particular PR. That kind of Page Rank manipulation will be harder.

Another possible fall-out will be that of raising the standard of PR. What I mean is, no longer will 4 PR7 inbound links be enough for gaining PR6.

Google might also bring in content factor in its Page Rank valuation. So far, there has been loud calls to omit Page Rank completely from Google’s system as anybody with little quality contents could get high Page Rank and hence SERPs.

All these will change Page Rank & SERPs hierarchy and many SEOs who have developed their business on Paid Link model will loose their jobs- there will be more heart burns.

Disclaimer: All these views are purely mine- on the basis of my study.

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! That’s what all websites and webmaster want to generate more and more revenue online – whether from online sales or Ad Sense or by selling advertisement. Without traffic, no income is possible online.

Of late I can see a lot of debates on webmasters forums and blogs in regard to relevancy, usefulness and effectiveness of web directories in search engine optimization. Many people dismiss web directories as being mere link-farms! They argue that – web directories do not send much traffic to sites listed in them. The also accuse directories of selling page rank, of listing low quality – spammy sites if they pay the review fee. Very serious allegations indeed!

So, is it true that web directories lost their significance in SEO world after the emergence of viral marketing, press release campaigns, e-mail marketing etc. as major SEO techniques that bring huge traffic?

My answer is a BIG NO. Web directories are still the most reliable, trustable and efficient sources of optimizing a new site. They are still the most helpful resources to a new site for quick indexing and durable search engine ranking.

I this competitive world, it is next to impossible to get links from sites that deal in the same niche as most site owners fear that if they help another site, it might outrank them and hence causing a decrease in business volume. On the other-hand, web directories are sites that can list any website on categories arranged by subjects and therefore, websites, whatever their niche may be, get a relevant link that is so much scarce. And most of those links are permanent.

Now, the question is – if directories are so good – why are many webmasters and SEO professionals raising questions against them?

Well, being involved in the industry for sometime now, I have done an in-depth analysis of the situation and came up with some disturbing facts. I have found that all the allegations mentioned above are true!

As in every sphere of our life, there are lots of vultures, money sharks on the web too. Their main motive is to grab a few dollars by hook or by crook.

So who are they?

They are the members of Quick Buck Crew – a term used to refer those who are destroying the name of the web directory industry by their malicious manipulation of the good vibes of web directories which was earned by the hard work of quality web directories like BOTW, Alive, Aviva and many other high quality directories.

Their Modus-Operandi is very simple. They buy expired or unused domains with high PR and then install directory scripts on them. Then they advertise that their web directory has so and so page rank –and it is very cheap to list.

Whatever people say on the face, it is a truth that- most webmasters and SEO professionals look for high PR directories to list sites, And due to these circumstances, the whole industry is facing a crisis.

What baffles me is the fact that even experienced webmasters and hard core SEO professionals fail to differentiate between a quality high PR web directory and a duplicate web directory that is up there to con those self proclaimed experts!

It is a very basic job to differentiate between an established website (of late those conmen have been installing blogs and other sites on those condemned domains) and a duplicate one. Just go to Iwebtool or Linkvendor and use the Visual PR tool. If the sub-pages, categories of the said site has any sort of PR in inner-categories, pages (it does not matter what PR inner-pages have) – then VOILA! It’s a genuine website running for sometime. If it has only home page PR and no PR on inner-pages –the –BEWARE – you are dealing with a CONMAN –duplicate site.

Regarding allegations of web directories not sending traffic – I would like to ask those who say such things – WHAT IS THE PRIMARY ROLE OF A WEB DIRECTORY? DO YOU CONSIDER IT TO BE A LOCAL TELEPHONE INDEX OR YELLOW PAGES?

The answer is clearly A BIG NO. A web directory is neither a telephone directory now a yellow pages index. Its primary role is to help a site get indexed with search engines and help you rank high in them. Its secondary role is to provide selective catalog of quality websites listed by categories and subjects. So if some one thinks that a web directory would provide all the best web resources on the net, then Google will be out of market!!! as nobody would search Google if they find all their resources on a web directory.

Still –there are some directories that send exceptional traffic to listed sites. I recently checked the most popular sites one of the best directories online – Alive Directory — and the figure is astonishing -

Please check yourself. -

http://www.alivedirectory.com/index.php?list=top

How many visitors have those sites received and for how much? How much does it cost for to get visitor using Ad Wrods? How much SEO professional charges for marketing campaigns? Think carefully an calculate the benefits!

Now think !!- if you list in 50 quality web directories and take into account the direct traffic accumulated from them in an year –and the cost — you get your answer. Those traffic are flowing slowly but on a constant basis — all the year through. And they would keep flowing months after months –year after years.

Are we forgetting something here?

YES OFCOURSE.

We are forgetting the most important thing to list in web directories –the SERPs benefit you get. If you optimize with those 50 top quality directories -you are sure to rank on top for many keywords related to your site. And how much traffic you get from search engines?? Do you count that??

And while Adwords, viral marketing and other means of traffic generation need constant work, one has to just list once with a directory and pay a nominal review fee. If the site is of quality, then it has every chance that it gets listed on the said directory and keeps getting traffic years after years –albeit slow.

On the other hand – true quality directories could boost a site’s search engine ranking beyond imaginations. Please remember, no single directory can do it alone – not even DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, Business.com or even Google Directory. It more like “Little drops of water makes an Ocean together”: D

So web directories still ROCK – they are highly useful, effective and relevant –

Forget nay Sayers – get your strategy right, make a budget and try out my list of Authority Web Directories. The list is a personal one made on through research on all of them.

And please don’t forget my own Best Internet Resource - . Although it is still not in the top league – I can assure you that – it will join them in the near future.

PS: Just wanted to share my own technique of how I judge a quality web directory.

1. First thing I do is check the home-page PR. I like directories PR4+
2. Second thing (most important) – I check the Visual PR of the said directory. It does not matter what PR the pages have, if they have some sort of PR, then it is an established directory.
3. I then check its backlinks –and see what sites are linking to it. I use Linkvendor tool to do it.
4. I then check the listed sites in the directory. I look for the quality of the previously listed sites. If the directory has low quality sites listed – I avoid them.
5. Another very important thing to judge about a web directory is – how often the site is being indexed and if the page/category you are looking for is indexed. I believe that- a high quality site gets indexed more frequently than a low quality site.

Please also see what Matt Cuts has to say about quality web directories.

Sorry for such a long post – but being a career academician – I don’t know how to shorten my posts. I promise you – I’ll try my best to shorten my future posts.

Slashdot It! | Digg It!

Unfortunately my Coder is not online to install DIGG and other SB link Plugins — so I am giving the links here–

Please Digg it and vote on other sites too if you think my answer is correct to Rand Fishkin’s un-necessary/illogical tirade against web directories.

DIGG IT

Vote On Netscape

Rand Fishkin, the owner of SEOMOZ
– a web marketing or search engine optimization company based in Seattle, has recently launched a vicious attack on web directories in his blog post titled Whiteboard Friday - “You’re Not On The List. According to Mr. Fishkin, webmasters must first do a little bit of research about the quality of web directories before they submit ( this is very true which I already  discussed on my previous blog post titled -Google and Relevancy and Role of Modern Web Directories

). But his follow up points really rattled the hornets nest. In one of his replies to a commentator, he advices his readers that- money spent for listing on web directories is money wasted.

” Brian - I seriously doubt there’s any harm you can cause, it’s just that there’s a better use for your 10 minutes and $20.”

I am not an SEO expert, just a normal directory owner and a very avid reader and follower of everything related to SEO. Since my online life begun in 2006, I have been trying to understand the basic nuances of search engine optimization. Whenever I find time – I try to visit and read Matt Cutts Blog, searchengineguide , searchengineland, searchenginelowdown, Google’s Blog, Yahoo Search Blog , Ask Blog and few more.

I must confess – I have gathered a few basic knowledge about how to optimize a website. I do all optimization myself and my sites are ranking very high on Google and Yahoo for my terms.

So what is SEO?

Search Engine Optimizer according to Google.

How do I optimize my sites?

From what I understand –there are two principal ways to optimize a site –

On-page- Optimization that means making your site very easily crawlable by search engine bots (Check what Google says) by designing the site structure properly with proper meta tags. Just follow simple guidelines and make your site structure accordingly. Another very important point to note about on-page optimization is to put as many or as much related unique contents to your website as you can which will make your site different and valuable than others.

On-page optimization also includes other factors like domain relevancy and site title. If you are thinking of a website in a highly competitive keyword niche, try to buy a domain as close to your main keyword as possible. Make the title of the site with the keyword. This makes search engine optimization job 50% easier.

Second SEO technique is –Off-page optimization. This involves acquiring related links from other sites to your site. One very crucial thing to note here is promotion of anchor words. When you promote your site and get link from other sites – remember to get a link with the words/phrases that is most relevant to your sites. This will make search engine bots to find your site when some one searches for the words/phrases that you are optimizing. Once your site is well known to Google, it will automatically rank other words/phrases that are relevant to your site as is illustrated by Google in its Google Technology page.

Now – most webmasters have this basic SEO knowledge. So why did I mention it?

I mentioned this because SEOMOZ or Rand Fishkin, despite being one of the top most SEO companies forgot these basic facts while writing an article against paid directories! Mr. Fishkin gave example of Aviva Directory, a market leader in the directory industry to prove how that directory is nothing but useless because it does not rank well for its own title “Information – Aviva Web Directory ‘ ( He tried it by removing Aviva’s brand name Aviva) . That is just ridiculous to say the least. Aviva Directory is one of the top 10 most respected and well promoted directories on the World Wide Web which has been recognized by Google by giving it an authority status whereby Google is showing sitelinks when someone types “Aviva Directory’ on the Google search bar. It does provide real high quality web resource with over 30,000 websites carefully included by its full-time editors.

Now that Mr. Fishkin thinks Aviva Directory is not a quality directory, it raises few questions against his SEO judgements, ability, honesty, and overall reliability of SEOMOZ as a premiere SEO agency! John Scott, another great SEO exponent and owner of Internet Marketing Blog has raised questions about Rand Fishkin and his method of rating a web directory based on search engine ranking authority logic on this V7N Forum thread — http://www.v7n.com/forums/web-directory-issues/62644-rand-fishkin-vs-aviva.html

John Scott is definitely asking his methodology of judging web directories based on search engine ranking for certain keywords and sub-pages/categories. Mr. Rand also cites inbound .gov and .edu links as ranking criteria for directories. Whereas, there is no doubt these sites are trustworthy and authoritative, according to Matt Cutts - it is a myth among Old School SEOs that these links are given extra weight by Google. So there is nothing to support the claims by Mr. Fishkin and those views expressed in his post are imaginary and just his personal vendetta against web directories.

To further illustrate how faulty Rand Fishkin’s methodology – please check yourself where does DMOZ rank for terms like travel web directory, health web directory, family web directory, business web directory, resource web directory, internet resource directory—the list of keywords can go on. You can also remove the word “ web“ from those keywords, phrases and see how many of those directories that he is bashing ranks far above than DMOZ. What a ridiculous idea to judge a directory on the basis of its SERPs! So, according to his methodology, those directories have far greater authority than DMOZ. And to show more frustration and hypocrisy of Mr. Fishkin –please read his blog posts and comment replies where he says he bribes into DMOZ listing. What a POOR sense of morality!

Let me do some ridicule (joke) at Rand Fishkin’s methodology–

I own a web directory titled “Page Rank Luck Directory“

According to his theory of rating a directory - I followed his methodology –

I tried SERPs of my directory with keywords –

Page Rank Directory

Rank Directory

Page Directory

Page Rank ( is this keyword competitive enough for ya??)

Surprisingly I rank within top 100 for all those keywords and except “Page Rank” I rank on first page for all other words. I am hitting Google Data Centre -http://72.14.235.104/

Not only that — I rank on top page of Google for keyword ” Strong Directory” for which I never optimised and which is just an anchor word of one of my advertiser. I also rank No 26th for the Keyword - “Travel Web Directory” whereas DOMZ ranks -130+ for the same Keyword. According to your logic/methodology — my directory is far-far better than DMOZ in this niche.So why the hell you bribe those DMOZ editors wheres you could try to submit to my directory if your client’s site is of qualitty ( please mark the word QUALITY) for a dismall review fee? I may approve if it is quality– and refuse if it is crap!

Actually, there has been a bit of history going on between web directories and Rand Fishkin for sometime. SEOMOZ has invented a site ranking tool called Page Strength which was meant to have broader ranking matrix than Google’s Page Rank matrix ( only taking inbound links into account) and Bob Mutch’s IQL matrix ( only taking incoming .edu & .gov, Yahoo directory & DMOZ links into account) by taking into account many other factors such as links from Domain Age, Alexa Ranking, Wikipedia, DMOZ Directory, Del.Icio.US, Technorati links and few more. This tool was lying in obscurity till Jeff, owner of Aviva Directory started to use it for ranking web directories in his Directories Blog. Soon, the PS tool of SEOMOZ became a raze among webmasters in general and web directory owners in particular.

After seeing this, and realizing the potential, Rand Fishkin and his SEOMOZ started to charge to use the tool that was once free for all. Now, normal users were limited to use the tool only once per day and unlimited usage was reserved for the Premium Members who could use it as much as they want. Coincidently or otherwise ( hint!) – the tool started to malfunction and most people were of the impression that Rand Fishkin was after money. It resulted into some detailed review of Page Strength tool and SEOMOZ on Digital Point Forum. Mr. Fishkin has been termed a Quick Buck Crew (QBC), a new term introduced by Rob and Jeff started a debate on it on his blog.

Mr. Fishkin’s view of dismissing web directories and they being waste of money and time is totally unfounded and is against what Google advises to webmasters to submit their sites to related web directories. Matt Cutts also endorses quality web directories that has high editorial integrity.

Matt Cutts says –

Google Webmasters Guidelines Says -

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

So all these problems have been result of Mr. Fishkin’s own creations and his lack of Public Relations ability, his inability to communicate properly with his fellow webmasters and his arrogancy because he thinks he is best as he has personal terms with Matt Cutts ( I don’t think its going to help as what I gather from my experience- Matt is a man of integrity and he won’t favor a friend for his foolishness over TRUTH)who picked his SEOMOZ as Best Search Engine Community Blog of 2006. It is known to all that- when someone gets out of his limit, it is the start to fall back down-to-earth also.

The question now is – what is Mr Rand Fishkin and his SEOMOZ capable of!!.What do they do for their big multinational clients in exchange of hundreds of thousands of dollars they charge! Simple, they do simple research work on the best targeted words/phrases for their clients and buy Google Adwords & Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, they also buy sponsored links from related authority sites with the anchor words – that drives huge traffic to their clients. Most Matt Cutts disciples talk about gaining organic links through social marketing and netwroking sites like Diggs, Slashdot, Netscape, Viral Marketing ( I thought I had viral fever )etc. But experienced webmasters know how hard it is to put even one article on the front pages of these sites and without going to front page - one can not expect to get too many organic links. And how can you put so many of your clients’ sites again and again on the fron pages of these sites? There must be something fishy that goes on behind the doors. Mr Fishkins’ integrity as a Good SEO can be gauged by his own blog post where he says –

“Selective – it’s hard to get in, because the editors carefully review the quality and value of including each site that’s submitted. Yahoo! & DMOZ would be good examples of selective directories (though DMOZ is often far too picky, and my main strategy at that site used to be bribing editors, so they’re not a perfect choice). Other directories may be even tougher to get on, like Nature.com’s recommended links or the Forbes Best of the Web and some might be easier, like Emily Chang’s eHub or Business.com. My view is that all of these provide solid value.”

He bribes DMOZ editors to get his clients sites listed and he talks about good ethical SEOing and advises people not to list in web directories. Those multinational companies just waste their money by hiring SEOs like Mr. Fishkin who could do anything to keep their clients and money. Google specifically warns against SEO firms that do not follow Google’s ranking guidelines.

Is creating cheap, irresponsible (without valid prrof) controversies at regular intervals at the expense of others -yous main SEO ( read traffic) strategy? Well - I have certainly learnt from you– –but I am not irresponsible– all my points carry facts and link to proofs.

Thank you

You comments on the post is very much welcome.