• majorAlexa

        See all notifications

        Skip to content
        Moz logo Menu open Menu close
        • Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Pro Home
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Home
          • STAT
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Home
          • Compare SEO Products
          • Moz Data
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Link Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • MozBar
          • More Free SEO Tools
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Moz Academy
          • MozCon
          • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Small Business Solutions
          • The Moz Story
          • New Releases
        • Log in
        • Log out
        • Products
          • Moz Pro

            Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

          • Moz Local

            Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

          • STAT

            SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

          • Moz API

            Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

          • Compare SEO Products

            See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

          • Moz Data

            Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

          Let your business shine with Listings AI
          Moz Local

          Let your business shine with Listings AI

          Learn more
        • Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Analysis

            Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

          • Keyword Explorer

            Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

          • Link Explorer

            Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

          • Competitive Research

            Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

          • MozBar

            See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

          • More Free SEO Tools

            Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
          Moz Pro

          NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

          Learn more
        • Learn SEO
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO

            The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

          • SEO Learning Center

            Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

          • On-Demand Webinars

            Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

          • How-To Guides

            Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

          • Moz Academy

            Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

          • MozCon

            Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
          Moz API

          Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

          Find your plan
        • Blog
        • Why Moz
          • Digital Marketers

            Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

          • Small Business Solutions

            Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

          • Agency Solutions

            Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

          • Enterprise Solutions

            Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

          • The Moz Story

            Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

          • New Releases

            Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

          Surface actionable competitive intel
          New Feature

          Surface actionable competitive intel

          Learn More
        • Log in
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz Local Dashboard
          • Moz API
          • Moz API Dashboard
          • Moz Academy
        • Avatar
          • Moz Home
          • Notifications
          • Account & Billing
          • Manage Users
          • Community Profile
          • My Q&A
          • My Videos
          • Log Out

        The Moz Q&A Forum

        • Forum
        • Questions
        • My Q&A
        • Users
        • Ask the Community

        Welcome to the Q&A Forum

        Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

        1. Home
        2. Research & Trends
        3. White Hat / Black Hat SEO
        4. Good vs Bad Web directories

        Moz Q&A is closed.

        After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

        Good vs Bad Web directories

        White Hat / Black Hat SEO
        3
        5
        1395
        Loading More Posts
        • Watching

          Notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread.

        • Not Watching

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Show question in unread if category is not ignored.

        • Ignoring

          Do not notify me of new replies.
          Do not show question in unread.

        • Oldest to Newest
        • Newest to Oldest
        • Most Votes
        Reply
        • Reply as question
        Locked
        This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
        • IsaCleanse
          IsaCleanse last edited by

          Hi this blog post Rand mentions a list of bad web directories - I asked couple of years ago if there is an updated list as some of these (Alive Directory for example) do not seem to be blacklisted anymore and are coming up in Google searches etc?

          It seems due to old age of the blog post (7 years ago ) the comments are not responded to.

          Would anyone be able to advise if which of these good directories to use?

          https://a-moz.groupbuyseo.org/blog/what-makes-a-good-web-directory-and-why-google-penalized-dozens-of-bad-ones

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • IsaCleanse
            IsaCleanse @LoganRay last edited by

            Hi Logan - just had a proper look at all those domains and seems most of them are for US based businesses. Would you have a reference for anything on a global scale?

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • IsaCleanse
              IsaCleanse last edited by

              Thanks gents!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • LSIversen
                LSIversen @LoganRay last edited by

                I can only agree with what Logan said here.

                I would say, that not all directories are a waste though. If you happen to find a directory with good authority, is still being maintained and is relevant to your niche or location, then I would say go for it. Just always think whether it's worth it or not to go for it. If you're in doubt, then that's probably a sign you shouldn't waste time on it.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • LoganRay
                  LoganRay last edited by

                  Hi,

                  Here's a pretty recent list that HubSpot put together. Though I should warn you, directories in general, are not the best approach to acquiring high-quality links.

                  A good rule of thumb is this: If a link was obtained easily, especially if you have full control over it, it's probably not going to help too much.

                  http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/10322/The-Ultimate-List-50-Local-Business-Directories.aspx#sm.000i6lxxx2nmcze110f1lhnf2q08g

                  LSIversen IsaCleanse 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
                  • 1 / 1
                  • First post
                    Last post

                  Browse Questions

                  Explore more categories

                  • Moz Tools

                    Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

                  • SEO Tactics

                    Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

                  • Community

                    Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

                  • Digital Marketing

                    Chat about tactics outside of SEO

                  • Research & Trends

                    Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

                  • Support

                    Connect on product support and feature requests.

                  • See all categories

                  Related Questions

                  • vtmoz

                    How good/bad the exit intent pop-ups? What is Google's perspective?

                    Hi all, We have launched the exit intent pop-ups on our website where a pop-up will appear when the visitor is about to leave the website. This will trigger when the mouse is moved to the top window section; as an attempt by the visitor to close the window. We see a slight ranking drop post this pop-up launch. As the pop-up is appearing just before someone leaves the website; does this making Google to see as if the user left because of the pop-up and penalizing us? What is your thoughts and suggestions on this? Thanks

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | vtmoz
                    1
                  • jampaper

                    Are All Paid Links and Submissions Bad?

                    My company was recently approached by a website dedicated to delivering information and insights about our industry. They asked us if we wanted to pay for a "company profile" where they would summarize our company, add a followed link to our site, and promote a giveaway for us. This website is very authoritative and definitely provides helpful use to its audience. How can this website get away with paid submissions like this? Doesn't that go against everything Google preaches? If I were to pay for a profile with them, would I request for a "nofollow" link back to my site?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jampaper
                    1
                  • Felip3

                    Does Ezine articles still make any good?

                    In the past many of the articles we posted in our blog we post on Ezine articles. After Penguin still make any sense to post on Ezine? Can the post on Ezine make any bad or Good to our ranking? What kind of tactics are guys using to promote articles/post in your blog?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Felip3
                    0
                  • WebServiceConsulting.com

                    Noindexing Thin Content Pages: Good or Bad?

                    If you have massive pages with super thin content (such as pagination pages) and you noindex them, once they are removed from googles index (and if these pages aren't viewable to the user and/or don't get any traffic) is it smart to completely remove them (404?) or is there any valid reason that they should be kept? If you noindex them, should you keep all URLs in the sitemap so that google will recrawl and notice the noindex tag? If you noindex them, and then remove the sitemap, can Google still recrawl and recognize the noindex tag on their own?

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | WebServiceConsulting.com
                    0
                  • Bodie

                    Google places VS position one ranking above the places.

                    Hi Guys, Will creating a new Google places listing for a business have any effect their current position one spot for their major geo location keyword? I.e restaurants perth - say they are ranking no 1 above all the places listings if they set up a places listing would they lose that position and merge with all the other places accounts? Or would they have that listing as well as the places listing? I have been advised it could be detrimental to set up the places account if this is the case does anyone know any ways around this issue as the business really needs a places page for google maps etc. Appreciate some guidance Thanks. BC

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Bodie
                    0
                  • BobGW

                    Niche Directories

                    Hello, I like the concept that a directory is good only if you would still want the link if it passed no link juice. DMOZ and Best of the Web fall into that category. And so do some niche directories. How do you determine whether to go with a niche directory or not? Also, what's the ratio of how many niche directory links you'd want compared to other types of links (being very safe) 3:1? 4:1? 5:1? Does it matter what your other links are? Thanks.

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | BobGW
                    1
                  • DROIDSTERS

                    Rel Noindex Nofollow tag vs meta noindex nofollow

                    Hi Mozzers I have a bit of thing I was pondering about this morning and would love to hear your opinion on it. So we had a bit of an issue on our client's website in the beginning of the year. I tried to find a way around it by using wild cards in my robots.txt but because different search engines treat wild cards differently it dint work out so well and only some search engines understood what I was trying to do. so here goes, I had a parameter on a big amount of URLs on the website with ?filter being pushed from the database we make use of filters on the site to filter out content for users to find what they are looking for much easier, concluding to database driven ?filter URLs (those ugly &^% URLs we all hate so much*. So what we looking to do is implementing nofollow noindex on all the internal links pointing to it the ?filter parameter URLs, however my SEO sense is telling me that the noindex nofollow should rather be on the individual ?filter parameter URL's metadata robots instead of all the internal links pointing the parameter URLs. Am I right in thinking this way? (reason why we want to put it on the internal links atm is because the of the development company states that they don't have control over the metadata of these database driven parameter URLs) If I am not mistaken noindex nofollow on the internal links could be seen as page rank sculpting where as onpage meta robots noindex nofolow is more of a comand like your robots.txt Anyone tested this before or have some more knowledge on the small detail of noindex nofollow? PS: canonical tags is also not doable at this point because we still in the process of cleaning out all the parameter URLs so +- 70% of the URLs doesn't have an SEO friendly URL yet to be canonicalized to. Would love to hear your thoughts on this. Thanks, Chris Captivate.

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | DROIDSTERS
                    0
                  • swzhai

                    A Straight Answer to Outsourcing Backlinking, Directory Submission and Social Bookmarking

                    Hey SEOmoz Community! I've spent a bit of time now reading about SEO in books as well as online here within the SEOmoz community. However, I've still struggled to find a straight answer to whether or not directory submissions to non-penalized websites is acceptable.I suspect the reason I haven't found a straight YES or NO answer is because it isn't so straightforward and I respect that. My dilemma is as follows: I want to raise the domain authority for a few websites that I optimize for. I've submitted and gotten listed a bunch of excellent backlinks, however it still is a painfully slow process. My clients understandably want to see results faster, and because they have virtually no past outsourced link-building campaigns, I am beginning to think that I can invest some money for outsourcing directory submissions. I see more and more people talking about the latest Penguin updates, and how many of these sites are now penalized. BUT, is there any harm to submitting to directories such as the ones on SEOmoz's spreadsheet that aren't penalized? My concern is that in the future these will be penalized anyways, and is there a chance then that my site will also be de-listed from Google? At what point does Google completely 'blacklist' your site from its engine? Furthermore, I don't understand how Google can penalize a website to the point of de-listing it, because what would prevent other competitors from sending mass spammy back-links to another? What it all comes down to: At this point, are verified mass directory submissions through outsourcing still much more beneficial than detrimental to the ranking of a website? Thanks SEOmoz community, Sheldon

                    White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | swzhai
                    0

                  Get started with Moz Pro!

                  Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                  Start my free trial
                  Products
                  • Moz Pro
                  • Moz Local
                  • Moz API
                  • Moz Data
                  • STAT
                  • Product Updates
                  Moz Solutions
                  • SMB Solutions
                  • Agency Solutions
                  • Enterprise Solutions
                  • Digital Marketers
                  Free SEO Tools
                  • Domain Authority Checker
                  • Link Explorer
                  • Keyword Explorer
                  • Competitive Research
                  • Brand Authority Checker
                  • Local Citation Checker
                  • MozBar Extension
                  • MozCast
                  Resources
                  • Blog
                  • SEO Learning Center
                  • Help Hub
                  • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                  • How-to Guides
                  • Moz Academy
                  • API Docs
                  About Moz
                  • About
                  • Team
                  • Careers
                  • Contact
                  Why Moz
                  • Case Studies
                  • Testimonials
                  Get Involved
                  • Become an Affiliate
                  • MozCon
                  • Webinars
                  • Practical Marketer Series
                  • MozPod
                  Connect with us

                  Contact the Help team

                  Join our newsletter
                  Moz logo
                  © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                  • Accessibility
                  • Terms of Use
                  • Privacy

                  Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.