Bob Mutch On Web Directories
:1) Q. Are you able to give us a short insight into your background? [home]
My background is computer consulting. I started my computer career back in the 80’s on the Apple 2 system. I cut my teeth on Novell Netware 2.0 and held a Certified Novell Engineer (CNE) certification until version 5.x. I did a gig on Netware 2.2 in Moscow at Hospital 51 back in 1985. I later moved on and got into Linux and worked with Daniel Robins at the start of Gentoo (I helped him pick the distribution name). I sold my computer consulting business in 2003 and move to Aylmer, Ontario Canada and went full time into SEO/M and developing web properties.
2) Q. What do you think sets your web directory list out from all the others? [home]
Well there are a number of other good lists out there. I don’t hold that mine are the best. I do have a nice multi-link directory list that not very many offer. Also I show lots of stats on my paid and free lists.
3) Q. Your directory list has thousands of directories listed. What is the criteria for listing sites within your list? [home]
I am pretty liberal with letting people in the list. As long as the directory is not a MFA (made for Adsence) site and they don’t have a load of empty categories I let them in.
4) Q. What are your thoughts on submission services? Do you think they are reliable? [home]
Well the 1000 free directories game for $99 is on the same level as those that are still selling people submissions to 1000 search engines — a total waste of money. But worse than that submitting to 1000 free directories (read spammy sites) lowers the quality of your link signature.
Before the big daddy update I had 270 free directories I submitted clients to. After Google’s big daddy update they started putting most of the free directories in the supplemental index and stopped crawling them as deep and often. Due to these issues I dropped my free directory submission plan down to just 70 free directories.
As far as submissions services to paid directories it is a service that is in high demand. If you have more time than money and you have the time to learn how to do it right then go and do it yourself. If you have more money than time then go and get a quality submission service to do it for you.
SEO Company goes over the clients titles to make sure they are targeting keywords that have traffic and are not to competitive for their site to rank (titles for multi-link directories). We make sure that the deep-link pages have good on-page optimization for the keywords they are targeting and we provide a quality report in HTML showing what pages their site was placed on.
SEO Company employs 2 full time employees that are DMOZ editors that take care of my directory submissions services. SEO Company did over $400k in 2006 and a huge part of that business was directory submissions.
5) Q. What do you see as Google’s role over directories? Do you see Google indexing them different than other sites? [home]
Google is working to encourage webmasters to increase the quality of their directories. They are doing this by devaluing ranking weight passed by directories that practice low editorial digression, keyword stuffing, give/sell non-relevant site-wide links and other spammy practices.
Directories have a high outbound link to content text ratio therefore their out bound link signature is looked at closer. Google looks at the quality of the inbound links and the quality of the sites that out abound links are given to. As quality sites don’t often link to low quality sites, directories that don’t use editorial digression and link to spammy sites will transfer low trust weight even if they have obtained high trust links.
The same goes for keyword stuffing in the titles. Google will devalue the ranking weight transferred when the outbound links of a site are consistently keyword stuffed.
After Google’s Jagger 1-2-3 update I thought directories and article sites would be the next to take a hit just because they were directories or article sites. I changed my mind on that after Google give some rating weight back to reciprocals. Reciprocals were such an integrated part of sites links that I think their devalue hurt the Google’s SERPs so they give some ranking weight back.
Google is taking more of a over all look at the link signature of a site than just saying these are reciprocals links and we are going to devalue them. Google is doing the same with directories. Google doesn’t need to make a list of all the spammy directories and devalue them. It can tell a site is a spammy directory by its link signature. This is why so many spammy free directories are not being crawled as deep and as often and many if not most of them are in the supplemental index.
6) Q. With many website owners now placing high level’s of attention to SEO, do you think that directories will have to evolve to keep up with the changes on the internet? [home]
After the top 20 general directories, directories are just link-buys — we all know that just most people don’t say it. But Directories are starting to evolve. Lots of directories are adding additional features and some are going to a portal design like UncoverTheNet. BOTW directory has added a sub-domain for blog directories, Ask Directory has added a detail page with 500 words about the site, and the list go on. Smart directories owners are starting to add value that will bring traffic. Link-buy directories are becoming more useless and Matt Cutts and his crew are seeing to that.
7) Q. In your view what is the biggest challenge for directory owners in this day-an-age? [home]
To become more than a link-buy.
8) Q. What are your thoughts on SEO friendly links that are used within directories? Are they beneficial in your view or not? [home]
I have never been for keywords stuffing in the title anchor text of directories. Google picks that up and I think it hurts a directory. I think multi-link directories with the company or domain name in the home page link and then putting the product or service name in a set of deep links with a high quality description for each link is the way to go. Directories need to produce some thing that will bring traffic via click-through or else they are just a link-buy.
9) Q. How do you think SEO will play a role in future years with directories? Do you think we will rely on it more? [home]
Link-buy directories are all about SEO as approximately 80% of SEO has to do with inbound links with the keyword you are targeting in the anchor text. I think there need to be less SEO in directories and more marketing and quality information that will bring traffic to the submitted sites through click though. After the top 20 general directories, directories are all about a link-buy — other than getting links they are useless.
10) Q. What do you think are the main key points to a successful directory? [home]
Rank high in the topics the directory is targeting; add features that will bring visits for more than just doing submissions; have the directories editors build up a good number of categories with a number of high quality sites; use editor discretion and don’t accept every one that has money; don’t allow keyword stuffing in the titles; leave all hype out of the descriptions; let the categories grow with the directory and start out with just a few categories or prefill the categories with quality sites; and have a high quality search script that will search on description, title, categories, domain.
11) Q. In your view what are the benefits (or disadvantages) of running a directory? [home]
For most the benefits is money and the disadvantages is when Matt Cutts hits your directory and the money flow dries up. For people that are into it for more than just money it is creating a product that shines. Categories that have better information than Google can cough up in the SERPs and a site that people visit and find high quality information.
12) Q. With so many directories, what do you see for the future of the industry? [home]
Link-sell directories will become useless over time as webmasters get educated and the Matt Cutts coders get smarter. I think that we are going to see more niche portal directories that get traffic based on content, provide cutting edge information, and rank high in their niche. As TrustRank gets a larger share of ranking weight pie, link-buy directories will become more useless and the niche directories that win high reputation links based on content will become very important.
13) Q. Do you own any other sites or scripts? [home]
I used to own a number of directories but I have sold them all off and am starting to build niche directories where I have a knowledge base. When I first got into the directory game I created a number of tier 3 link-buy directories with low categories, pointed high PR links at them, link dropped them in SEO forums and scripted them so webmasters could submit to all of them at the same time.
I made a good of money until Matt Cutts spanked the categories out of Google’s index due to the directories all having the similar outbound link signature. It was a mistake and one I feel bad about due to all the people that submitted their sites to them. My lesson – build for the long term, build quality and built niche directories where you have a knowledge base. SEO Company is currently building a number of niche portal directories.
14) Q. How do you relax at the end of the day? [home]
I love to read good spiritual books, visiting with my Christian friends and share my faith in Jesus with others. I have a vibrant spiritual relationship with God though Jesus that means more to me that anything in the world. I find peace in reflecting at the end of the day that I have dealt with all my clients the way I would want them to deal with me if I was in their shoes and they were in mine. I also enjoy doing chess puzzles, playing tennis, riding my cross country bicycle and reading non-fiction books. In December I read Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
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