Comments on: Do Blog Directories Help SEO?

By: Candra Evans

Candra Evans — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 16:23:18 +0000

Thank you for this article. I’ve submitted my blog to several listings, but it hasn’t been very effective. All the while I had badges all over the place. I was also curious about their effectiveness because there are thousands of other bloggers just like me, looking for the same increase in traffic. Is there enough exposure to go around? I wonder.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:14:30 +0000

Hi There,

In terms of building links there is nothing wrong with directories they just tend to hold very little value. To start your link building off you need to publish a few articles and approach some blogs for either guest blogging or ask them to link back to a relevant article of yours. I also like blog carnivals for early links and as long as your providing valuable content it should work well.

By: Poem Stream

Poem Stream — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 05:42:33 +0000

Tim, Thanks for this article. I was happily going about linking to many directories hoping that I might generate some traffic and improve site’s visibility in Google Search. However, I have noticed that some of my other site that I submitted to few directories don’t even show up in Google Webmaster Tools as links. I guess I should spend my time elsewhere. What are the best tips for increasing traffic and visibility in Google Search results? I will add, I have found that submitting to followlist.com has been beneficial in terms of traffic, but you have to question whether I’ll have problems with spammers.

By: Tim

Tim — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:56:55 +0000

Thanks TT,

I have to admit to being lazy and didn’t look at the link. This links is only relevant if a blog is not listed in Google blog search. I’ll update the comment.

By: timethief

timethief — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 22:53:01 +0000

Tim
The Google ping url Nita has provided displays this:
“If your blog is not listed in our results, we want to hear about it.
Enter your blog’s web or feed address below and we’ll do our best to add it to our index as quickly as possible.”

I think we can safely conclude that it’s not meant to be used every time we publish a post.

By: Tim

Tim — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:57:57 +0000

Hi Nita,

I would definitely ping Google, only when you update your blog though. This will help Google crawl you content but the only way to increase the amount of pages you have indexed is by getting links back to your pages, this way Google can see you have some general popularity on the web.

By: Nita

Nita — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:32:57 +0000

Yes it does Tim, thanks. However what about pinging Google? Is that okay? This is the url I go to:
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping
In any case google is not responding! They don’t index my pages for days afterwards. I think perhaps my blog is too new.

Only use this ping if your site is not already indexed in Googles blog search results, check if you’re listed by search “yoursite.com” in google blog search

By: Tim

Tim — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:27:55 +0000

Hi Nita,

Not sure whats going on with the comments, the length shouldn’t matter.

Anyway with regards to directories it is really up to you, blogcatalog, technorati, fuelmyblog and bloglines are some of the bigger ones, the ones that carry the most authority. All I recommend is that you keep the links back to them as minimal as possible as you are losing link jice through it.

Pinging is an essential part of blogging and it works by sending a message to the ‘blog’ search engines to let them know you have new content – ONLY PING WHEN YOU HAVE NEW CONTENT – If you use wordpress you can set it up to ping automatically in settings->writing I think, or you can go to pages like pingmyblog.com or pin-o-matic.com to do it manually.

Hope this helps

By: Nita

Nita — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:09:18 +0000

I made a comment but I got a blank page after I submitted so I am not sure that it went through. It was a huge comment so here it is in short.
I came here from TT’s
Which directories are good?
Google has a ping service although they don’t say it is, the ping is in the url. I read you can ping it regularly. I am doing, after something I read on the web. Is this a wrong strategy?
If my earlier comment got through, you can delete this one. Thanks.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:33:49 +0000

Hi Andrea,

Thanks for dropping in.

Submit to Google only once, however make sure you have some solid backlinks before doing so as Google may not index a page that is not being linked to. Submiting more than once is nothing but spamming and however told you to do it more than this is confused about the way Google works. Google will automatically check for new info on your site periodically, you can speed the crawling up in webmaster tools and you can also ping you r blog everytime you up date, this helps all search engines know you are publishing something fresh.

Hope this helps.