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Google No Longer Suggests Directory Submission

October 2nd, 2008 - by Brian Ussery

While Google has condemned buying and selling links that pass PageRank, they’ve encouraged listing in paid directories like Yahoo for years. It seems that era may have come to an end earlier today. The following bullet points have been removed from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines Webmaster Help Center*

• “Have other relevant sites link to yours.”
• “Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.”

Does this recent move reflect a renewed emphasis on rooting out paid links passing PageRank and/or low quality links by Google?

*As mentioned, the bullet points above have been removed from the US version of Google’s Webmaster Help Center. Other versions may not yet reflect this change.
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UPDATE: Hat tip to Barry Schwartz who noticed John Honeck’s post in Google Groups where Google’s John Mueller comments on the change. Barry provides a full recap at SERoundTable.com and SearchEngineLand.com.

Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 10:25 pm

Tags: Directories, Google, News, PageRank, Search, Spam, online marketing, resources, search engine optimization.

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6 Responses to “Google No Longer Suggests Directory Submission”

1. morepro Says:
   October 3rd, 2008 at 3:23 pm

   I’m not sure that this is a surprising move by Google, but it certainly does put additional strain on companies trying to acquire links for their websites and their client’s as well.

   Just another step in the constant evolution of SEO and having to deal w/ Google’s rules…

2. WebProNews Directory Blog » Blog Archive » No More DMOZ or Yahoo! Directory for Google? Says:
   October 6th, 2008 at 11:04 am

   [...] In fact, they’ve even removed the suggestion from their webmaster guidelines, as Brian Ussery noticed. The page used to have bullet points [...]

3. spanuva Says:
   October 8th, 2008 at 1:55 am

   Great catch Brian – good article!
   SEO / SEM community.

4. spanuva Says:
   October 8th, 2008 at 1:57 am

   Professional SEO Service
   Great catch Brian – good article! SEO/SEM community.

5. Another Google Directory Submission Update | beu blog Says:
   October 26th, 2008 at 3:35 pm

   [...] October 26th, 2008 – by Brian Ussery Since my previous post about Google removing, “Directory Submissions” from Webmaster Guidelines, I’ve noticed the UK version of Google’s Link Schemes [...]

6. Traditional Link Building - Does it still work? « David Segal Hull Says:
   January 22nd, 2009 at 10:42 am

   [...] to high quality and free portals are still essential. Eventhough it has been said recently that Google no longer suggests directory submissions, submitting to the top level directories in you market place is the base of all link tactics. [...]

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