Do Link Directories Affect Search Engine Results?

Link directories have so much do to with how the search engines help web surfers locate a given website, and generally with online marketing. There are several reasons why link directories play such an important role, and why they should be part of every webmaster’s marketing strategy. Among other things, link directories are quite popular as they make websites on given niche topics easily available to target audiences. Having a website added in the leading directories allows the website to gain greater visibility – a real boost to any online business.

The search engines and link directories work seamlessly together to ensure that people find exactly what they are looking for. As such, the search engines rely on directories as a major source of the links. They particularly rely on the link popularity of a given site, as per the quality of inbound and outbound links when redirecting internet users to a particular website. Needless to mention, this is what determines the ranking of a given website on the search engine’s results page when responding to a search query on given set of keywords.

The formula for getting the high ranks therefore may seem as simple as simply stuffing your website with lots of keywords describing and or tagging your site. Well, this used to work a few years back, but not at this time and age. Today, the search engines will rank a website not only based on the relevant keywords but also on the number of websites linking to that particular website. It therefore makes sense to submit your site to as many directories as you can. And not any directories, but authoritative directories that have huge traffic as this somewhat gives a 98% guarantee of a website getting listed.

Still on point, it is important to keep in mind that the search engine will also look at the quality of links to give your site rankings. Some web directories focus mainly on building link popularity hence will end up listing outbound links without authenticating their quality. Such directories are known as link farms and websites listed there are always lowly regarded and less valued by the search engines, if not entirely banned. What this means is that you would rather submit to one or two reliable web directories and get better rankings than submit to numerous link farms and not get any rankings at all.

It is also advisable to pay close attention to other websites linking to yours because the qualities of their links speak volumes of the quality of your links too. No webmaster would want their website associated with a low-quality website as web users will get the impression that their website is also of low quality and very cheap. Always aim to be associated with high quality link directories. Don’t just add your website in any link directory; it could adversely affect your rankings.

Boiled down, and what should be the goal of every webmaster today is to have their links added in a high-quality link directory to be guaranteed of good rankings in the search engine results.

Author Bio: Vacation and Travel Links Directory Wind is a SEO Optimized Link Directory

Category: Internet
Keywords: ,link Directory,submit link

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