Today it was reported that a lot of pay-for-inclusion directories have suffered a penalty in Google for possibly providing the types of services that they provide. While over at Sphinn.com it appears that there is quiet a commotion going on that resulted in a few members being temporary banned for not being respectful in their accusations against certain individuals or maybe even Google.

I’m not for or against directories. I’ve paid for some and have enjoyed free inclusion with others. However let’s be honest with ourselves for a minute and ask why exactly do we pay a yearly fee for a link on a website?

Most directories that my clients participate in are purely for the link love. We have a select set of directories that we’ve researched and monitored before deciding if they were worth the price but in the end our biggest focus has been on link love. In fact very few directories on our list will actually drive direct traffic on a regular basis and if we only looked at that factor our clients would save some money.

Even before Matt Cutts started asking us to report paid directories I started paying attention to my reasoning behind directory renewals. If it is only link love that is my motivation then I am not so much prepared to spend even the smallest amount of money on a link. However if it
drives traffic or if the site is consistently found at the top of searches I perform then I am more inclined to push for a submission to that directory.

I think Lyndon over at Sphinn said it best when he said, “The rules have changed but the directories have not.”

I communicate with directory owners on a weekly basis. Because of our client volume we have a lot of renewals and potential new submissions. So when renewals stop coming in and new submissions don’t happen, I am often called and asked, “What’s going on; where are the submissions?” I’d say a good portion of the time it has to do with their inability or unwillingness to bring their directory up to par with meeting today’s standards. Let’s face it, a directory that has nothing else but a bunch of pages with a title link and a description is old.

For those who are wondering, “What Now?”; I might suggest reading my previous blog post on Social Networking and Link Building.

As for me, I’ll still continue to promote directories like BOTW and GoGuides because they still prove themselves time and time again as directories that don’t fear change but adapt with it. Both directories may be slightly more costly then some out their but they are the luxury cars of the directory world while many others are the beat up volvos of the car industry.

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