REVA Digital Media

We all know that the Penguin and Panda updates are designed to push Webmasters away from relying on SEO tricks and towards creating more relevant content. So if Google is de-indexing free directories that SEOs and webmasters have often used to artificially build links, it would not come as much surprise. Google has made it clear that it does SEO and does not want anyone else trying to beat it at its own game. But that’s not the endgame. SEO is evolving and the best SEOs already know they have to change their approaches or fade away.

A bit of research.

The following research (using the term research loosely) was performed by Search News Central.

Updated at 3:40 PM EST on May 15, 2012

“We ran 423 mid-range directories (TBPR1-3) and found 22 not indexed. The spreadsheet download has been updated. So here’s what we have so far;

• Vetted list of top directories (66); 1.3% not indexed
• 423 mid-range directories; 5.2% not indexed
• 468 low end directories; 15.76% not indexed

Again, we don’t know how many of these were previously in the index, but it does give a sense of the quality factor involved.”

At first glance, one might be compelled to worry, especially if relying on free directories as a primary source of backlinks. But it’s a bit like chicken little, the sky is not really falling. We do not have all the data to say definitively at this point whether Google is really de-indexing free directories, but it seems many types of low quality sites are being classified as dead zones. A comment posted by Steve Gerencscer takes a more scientific point of view.

“There are quite literally tens of thousands of directory websites out there and to claim that they are being de-indexed with a sample of “5” or even 100 is not terribly scientific. Even at 1,000 being checked we are still only getting anecdotal information because I doubt too many people were tracking them to begin with.

I keep a refreshed list of about 1,000 directories for a lot of reasons…even that list sees about a 5% de-indexed or simply closed/shut down website percentage. between refreshes. 

Until someone takes the time to track a statistically relevant number of sites over a period of time longer than ‘right now’ no one can claim anything.”

Well when you put it like that it’s hard to disagree with Steve’s logic. But the truth is in SEO you do have to speculate a lot of the time. Google makes changes so rapidly, and our clients feel compelled to react one way or another. We have to try to make sense of what’s happening and advise clients the best course of action. 

The take away.

You should not rely on these directories for your link building strategy. If you provide SEO services, you have to focus on creating quality relevant content and optimizing it for social media. If you have relied a lot on directories for link building in the past, you may want to focus less on that and instead focus more on creating relevant content and getting quality links from more diversified and relevant sources. 

Finally, from a user-experience perspective, not showing free directories in search results is probably a good thing. There’s not much helpful information to be gained from those sites, they are almost strictly used by SEOs and webmasters to build links, not to provide any benefit to general audiences. Further, I doubt that most businesses would want a listing in a free directory as a top search result for their  brand.

Well, except PageRank. But PageRank and history are intertwined of course. Still most businesses will never achieve PageRank 9 status, nor have a PageRank 9 page confer its authority upon them. In short, unless you’re the likes of Facebook, Apple and other big timers and can easily confer your existing authority to a new website, you should consider your website history one of its most valuable assets and protect your authority pages. 

This may be something that Jeffrey Braverman of the Newark Nut Company forgot in his quest to obtain the holy grail of domains for his company, Nuts.com. Although Braverman’s existing website, NutsOnline.com, was averaging more than 30,000 visits each week from organic Google searches with traffic rising 5 to 10 percent per month, his desire for Nuts.com wouldn’t let up.  

In 2011 after years of waiting, Braverman finally purchased Nuts.com for several hundred thousand dollars. Here’s what happened next, according to The New York Times:

“His tech team cleaned out extraneous and duplicate pages and set up 301 redirects to send NutsOnline.com visitors to the corresponding pages on Nuts.com. Then on Jan. 6, he reopened his company on the new site. But despite his high hopes and careful planning, the site’s traffic took a dive. Traffic had been averaging more than 30,000 visits each week from nonpaid Google searches, but it fell 70 percent two weeks after the switch. Almost three months later, it was still down by more than 50 percent. The decline, Mr. Braverman said, cost the company at least 100 to 150 orders a day.”

The likely culprit was deleting pages that the company felt were extraneous or were duplicate. Those pages may have had unknown value; 301 redirecting them and including canonical URLs for the new page locations would have been the best approach. Deleting NutsOnline.com altogether and not 301 redirecting all the pages is the equivalent of throwing the baby out with the bath water.

Certainly in time Nuts.com will rebound. Hopefully Braverman has the capital to whether the interim loses. Seeing as how Newark Nut Company has grown from a small family operation to an industry leading company with 80 employees and an annual revenue of $20 Million with Braverman at the helm, I imagine the company will survive. Though this story will forever serve as a testament to the value of website history in search engine optimization.

Read the full blog in The New York Times.