Before you pay to have your website listed in as many directories as you can find in order to get more traffic, stop for a moment and consider how these paid listings could adversely effect your SEO results.

Luckily, Matt Cutts is back again with his latest video answering the question “are paid directories held to the same standards as paid links?”

And the answer…

A paid directory is much like buying a permanent link on a site – it’s expected to be on a certain relevant page for much longer than a guest post for example.

However, Google look’s a little deeper at link directories to ensure they haven’t just sprung up overnight by an owner who bought a recently expired but decent PageRank domain and is attempting to make quick money off of people who are willing to buy links just to appease Google. When Google comes across these types of directories it will usually lower the page rank of the directory, so that it isn’t seen as a trusted source for website’s looking for link love.

If the directory looks to be primarily a link scheme, then Google will hold the paid directory to the same standard as paid links.

That’s not to say that all paid directories are bad. Yahoo! and DMOZ are both good examples of directories that are long established, use quite stringent editorial discretion (to eliminate spammy sites) and will put your link on to a static page with minimal outbound links, which is what Google prefers.

So basically not all paid directories are equal in the eyes of search engine giant, Google.

Before you decide to pay to be in an online directory or choose to create one I suggest you watch the video.

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