I mentioned before that Web directories are just that. They are directories on the world wide web that specialize in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. There are different types of directories, both free and premium pay. I have personally been working with the free ones, because I am trying to gain a larger initial return on investment (ROI), before expanding my budgets.
The free directories are human-edited directories. Human edited directories are liked by the search engines because they tend to house much more reliable links and information on the websites that it contains. Because of the search engine/web directory relationship, web directories tend to have good page ranks. Linking your affiliate website to these directories will improve your pages ranking with Google, since it is Google that is the progenitor of page ranks.
Page Rank is calculated as follows: This is a simplified equation
Thus if you wish to calculate your page rank which we will consider page "A", and you are linked/back-linked to pages B, C, and D, your page rank is the summation of the page rank PR() of a linked page divided by the number of outbound links L() that page has. So it would make sense that as you continue adding your page to web directories and as the entries get approved you will see your page rank slowly increase since this effect is cumulative.
There are a couple of good tools for quickly getting a calculation of your page rank, or the page rank of any page. One tool is located along the left frame of this blog. It will show you the page rank of the URL you enter. This tool is called page rank checker. Another tool that I use to check not only the page rank but the validity of the page rank is called check page rank.
I have been paying particular attention to check page rank. Here are a couple of screen shots for your consideration. I will explain what is in them. The figure shows the page rank out of a possible 10, the link popularity, major web directory listings, and registered domains. Besides the page rank itself the other interesting thing to note is the link popularity. Link popularity is just another way to say the number of pages linked to your website. This is important because you will be able to keep track of how many of your web directory entries are being approved. The major web directories, DMoz, Yahoo, and Google are paid subscriptions and come at a premium. For example a listing of your website in Yahoo's directory would cost $300 US per year. Eventually I would apply for an entry into the major web directories, but perhaps some time later.
Improving your page rank in the search engines will mean better placement for your pay per click ads, and subsequently lower cost/click, as well as your website appearing higher on regular searches. Another added benefit is that you increase organic searches through referring sites. By that I mean all of those web directory entries that you create will increase organic searches. Organic traffic is traffic that comes from sources other than search engines (Yahoo, Google, MSN...).
Before I mentioned the resource that I have used to add web directory listings. The site is addurl.nu. When you go to this site you will notice a very long list of web directories (nearly 1000), sorted by page rank. Take this list and do the following:
- Do submit your site to 10 web directories per day, as this keeps you from appearing as spam, and will assure your page rank being genuine.
- Do follow the instructions for each web directory, though they are very similar
- Do wisely choose the category for your listing (ex. credit cards go in personal finance, or finance and investment)
- Do keep your website title short
- Do keep your website description to the point, clear, and not more than 300 characters
- Do not submit to directories where you must pay for a regular submission
- Do not submit to directories that require reciprocal links.
- Do not submit entries with reciprocal links.
- Do not attempt to utilize a service that submits your website to some large number of directories.
Reciprocal links are links provided to you at the time of your directory submission. You are supposed to take the snippet of code, and enter it into your website. So because we are adding our affiliate website to lots of directories it is not in our best interest to do submissions with reciprocal links because it would mean you would need to edit your website to display a link to each and every directory, which does not make sense.
Below is a typical submission form. The various sites may differ slightly but all of the elements needed are the same. For example, some sites use captcha to verify your submission, while others allow you to enter meta keywords from your website, as well as meta descriptions. The typical procedure to add your website to the directory is:
- Browse the directory looking for the proper category that your site belongs in.
- Once you have found the proper category, click the "submit link" or “add site”, or comparable submission link. Sometimes it is on the top of the page, sometimes it is in the left frame or the right frame. You may need to look for it.
- Once you have done that, the form below appears.
Just so you would know, Google.com has a page rank of 10, and has a link popularity of ~341 million.
Recently I had a drop in page rank when Google redid the way that it calculates page rank. I mentioned that there were practices that merit penalty, none of which I am doing. I mentioned page rank sculpting, and link selling. So, with that in mind with the decrease in my page rank I subsequently saw a decrease in traffic through my site. I said all of that to say this: Since my page rank has again started increasing I have again noticed a marked increase in traffic. My page rank is currently 1 for my credit card website, and 2 for my online mall website.
This is direct evidence of the importance of page ranks. I would say that from just an increase of 1 my traffic increased by at least 300%.
Feel free to leave comments if there are questions, as well as a way to write you back.
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