New blog directories
Blogged.com has been receiving coverage for its official launch Monday from the major tech blogs as a human--edited blog directory. Congrats to friends Reggie / Niknik and Joel for receiving high marks from Blogged's reviewers of real estate blogs. In addition, new directories Trafficjam.com and BlogCatalog also serve the same purpose of identifying relevant blogs by industry (in the above links' case, real estate).
A number of blog directories have spawned as more consumers become accustomed to blogs as sources of information. The problem is the directories don't generate significant traffic to real estate blogs, because the directories themselves aren't well trafficked for specific industries like real estate. In other word, a reader searching for real estate blogs will likely bypass a generic blog directory in his/her search methodology.
This blogger compiled a list of blog directory sites by Google page rank, with the caveat advice that participating in these blog directories won't significantly contribute to online traffic, but may help in creating linkage between the directory and the blog for search engine rank purposes. For new bloggers, it may be worth a few hours of distraction to get listed on these directories as a PR exercise.
A number of blog directories have spawned as more consumers become accustomed to blogs as sources of information. The problem is the directories don't generate significant traffic to real estate blogs, because the directories themselves aren't well trafficked for specific industries like real estate. In other word, a reader searching for real estate blogs will likely bypass a generic blog directory in his/her search methodology.
This blogger compiled a list of blog directory sites by Google page rank, with the caveat advice that participating in these blog directories won't significantly contribute to online traffic, but may help in creating linkage between the directory and the blog for search engine rank purposes. For new bloggers, it may be worth a few hours of distraction to get listed on these directories as a PR exercise.
We also need to look for the possibilility that the internal pages where you would be linked has any PR. In the case of the quick checks I did from the list is in fact even though the URL's front page (or technically its index page) is a high PR, its internal pages are either Zero or not any PR. Not good.
http://www.blogdirs.com/business/real-estate/ as an example.
The other thing to look for is that the link itself does not have a no follow attached to it. This tag slides at the start or end of a link tag like sohttp..... you would have to crack open the source to check that one unless you have special tools that show it to you visually like Firefoxes nofollow checker plugin. (sorry the name of it slips me, but if you search plug ins you will find it).If you see this nofollow, then the link simply will not pas son any page rank. Although it may help in other engines. Another way this is accomplished is thru Java script. Which I will not get into here.
The other thing is that the PR bar is purposefully pretty poor measure of real Page Rank. It at best is several months behind in accuracy. While many doubt its accuracy at all-ever.
So to check yourself for value, do a back link check thru Yahoo, not Google, and see if the page you will be listed in actually has any real link value to it.
And to add an extra wrench to the process, find out how old the page is thru archive.org. The older the better.
Or just say what the hell and just get listed there anyway
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Thanks for the extracurricular feedback Tim! You've addressed the main problem with participating in these directories... there are no guarantees that any of this will work to build traffic to the blog. Since Transparent Real Estate has become relatively well known in the RE blog circuit, I don't bother too much with directories. For new blogs, like you say - what the hell, it may be worthwhile ...
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I appreciate the tip as every link helps, but I've noticed that Google seemed to have "caught on" to these directories and treat them like link farms unless of course a ton of people are linking to them and then Google will obviously see them as a good source...long story short, these directories need to work on deep link building!
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From what i am seeing as a new blogger, the directories give you no traffic, especially if you have a local blog. However, pat, i agree with you...for seo purposes they are important.
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I was told that deep link building is good for the directories also. I know a real estate website that had a great PR and continued getting backlinks from "farms"...Google dropped them dramatically.
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Gridley if what you are implying is that a link from one site can hurt another site then indeed I am in the wrong business.
I forsee then competition sniping as my next business. Create link farms and do not link to my clients, but their competitors. Its a million dollar idea.
However for that very reason it is a fantasy. Its not gonna happen.
Now if you link to any bad neighborhood or "sin " site from your site you will possibly suffer the consequences.
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