Directory submissions have always been a useful tool for webmasters to promote their websites either freely or through paid submissions. Most of the directories provide one way backlinks which really helps in Google SERP (Search Engine Result Page) ranking. But also directory submissions is always been a matter of discussion among the online marketing experts that whether directory submissions is still as good as they were in the past.
Many experts say that Google now gives less importance to directory submission. But there is no authorize source to confirm it. Various established blogs tells a lot about article commenting on this debatable topic. The truth is that when SEO services picked momentum to optimize their site, webmasters became crazy for link building. Many of them even started using “Black Hat” SEO techniques to promote their website. Here directory submissions played a major role. As it always been a very easy method to get one way links, webmasters started automated softwares to submit their sites to top directories. These automated software’s were very effective as if you submit your site manually to a directory, hardly have you can make 25 to 30 quality and relevant submissions in a day. But these automated software’s were so effective that they made 100’s of submissions every day saving a lot of time of the webmasters.
As Google is known to frame its search results without any partiality, it realized that the use of these automated software’s can hamper their search results. So by changing their algorithm they became strict towards these automated link-building processes. This is where directories started loosing their significance. First of all major search engines tried to recognize the websites using automated software’s for their promotion. It was not difficult as if many new backlinks were found for a particular website all of a sudden it was assumed that they are using spamming technique to promote their website. So generally Google informs them to stop these negative SEO techniques else they will be banned. If this continues further, these sites are banned permanently.
So this quest for fast link building is what made Google and other search engines to give less priority to directory submissions. But if this tool is used effectively, its still is a good way to build one-way links. Directories like Dmoz, Yahoo directory still have a great importance as they are known to have quality sites listed in them. These directories too became strict to keep their sake alive by introducing various spamming protecting techniques like Captcha etc. They also analyze a site deeply to avoid any error and provide their users with the best possible result possible.