Any reason to link to DMOZ, Google and Yahoo...

[FirstTimePokerPlayer]

... other than providing your visitors a way to some supposedly quality poker sites? (Do the directory editors get flattered by this?)

[CK]

Maybe at one time it showed that you link to quality sites but I dont think thats the case anymore as everyone and their mother does it. And no the editors arent flattered - at least I doubt they would be as they dont see the referral logs so they really wouldnt know who did what unless they specifically looked at each site individually

tbh I would much rather link to a quality site (without asking for a link in return) than to link to Dmoz, yahoo and especially google. in all honesty I think its silly to link to google the way some have it eg - google.com. I will admit I have one link to google on one site because Im not done that site yet. The link is there for the user and not for any search engine, It basically directs the user back to google using the query they should be using to find my site. Theres no other reason behind it other than to give the user a choice to find something else since Im not quite ready yet.

back to linking to a quality site,. Why not link to someone who's a competitor but not a direct competitor. ie if your running a rakeback site you obv dont want to send traffic from your rakeback site to another, so why wouldnt you link to another top notch site like one of the big non spammy news sites, or a big affiliate portal that actually provides some info to its users.

Im curious to see what others think because so many people use this "linking". I just dont see something that everyone does as being something that benefits you to an extent where it makes a difference. I'd rather link to people that every other site isnt linking to as a one way link. Besides if your that generous to direct your traffic back to google or yahoo why not just give a really kick ass site the link.

[pipeline]

I've read by the apparent seo experts that it helps with not being labeled as a thin affiliate site. And the fact that you're not linking to just another authority "affiliate site"... I wish I could find the exact quote but I explicitly remember reading in Google guidelines that they don't want you linking to their serp listings like some pple do.

[Michael Martinez]

Pointing a link at DMOZ is not going to get you out of the "thin affiliate site" category if that is where you have been placed.

A thin affiliate site offers no value to the visitor beyond a sales pitch and a signup form. Adding 100 outbound links to an otherwise uninformative page is just going to make you look spammy.

The real reason to link to a directory is to help your visitors find something useful -- but you don't want it to be more useful than your own site.

Now, there is also an old (and still valid) SEO reason to link to directories. If search engine A has indexed a specific directory page that links to your site, but search engine B has not, then linking to the directory page may help search engine B decide to include that directory page.

This is a good way to get new sites indexed in multiple search engines (Bing in particular can be slow to index new, link-poor sites). It can also help your crawl.

However, you don't want to just link to random directories. Some search engines are suspicious of certain types of directories. I generally recommend that people avoid "SEO friendly" directories and directories that ask for or require a link back, for example.

If a directory page shows you more advertising than listings, it's probably also a candidate for trouble.

The more open and honest a directory is about being a directory, the better.

But just linking to directory pages is NOT going to help your site look more credible to a search engine.

[pipeline]

I have a perfect site to test this out on. It won't be linking to directories but authority sites that aren't affiliates. I actually misread the title and was thinking more along the lines of people linking to gamblersanonymous, gamcare etc. Either way large sites that are already listed in all the enginees still link to directories so I don't see the benefit on that part.

The site we had was the .com version of a KID and it had to get manually reviewed(old penalty when purchased). Needless to say, the Google nazi's wouldn't allow it back into the serps because they deemed it to much of a thin affiliate site despite us following their guideliness of NOT being a thin affiliate site. So we just moved the content over to the .net version, had a mild set back when some 301's had to even out now the rankings are pretty poor. 40-50 for main keyword.

From what I was told again by "seo experts" whatever they are these days, that adding some high quality links can help you get passed whatever category of thinish affiliate site you've been placed in. Worth a test to satisfy my own curiosity.

[Michael Martinez]

From what I was told again by "seo experts" whatever they are these days, that adding some high quality links can help you get passed whatever category of thinish affiliate site you've been placed in. Worth a test to satisfy my own curiosity.

If it were THAT simple, no one would have to ask for reinclusion.

I would not waste my time with that kind of experiment.

You convert a thin affiliate site into a robust information resource by putting the visitor's needs for information first and your need for conversions second.

You can gradually step up the placement of affiliate code after passing search engine inspection.

I would stay far away from any "SEO" technique that seeks to game the search engines when you're dealing with a site that is laboring under a penalty.

That's equivalent to walking into a police station with an unlicensed gun strapped to your hip just after robbing the bank around the corner, in my opinion.

[pipeline]

You convert a thin affiliate site into a robust information resource by putting the visitor's needs for information first and your need for conversions second.

I would stay far away from any "SEO" technique that seeks to game the search engines when you're dealing with a site that is laboring under a penalty.

The site was generated with 100 pages of solid content and conversion needs happen to apply with visitor needs. If you have a domain "gambling sites" and don't show the user good gambling sites along with reviews etc you're defeating the purpose of the domain.

I agree we should have put less affiliate links in the beginning (even though we didn't have any affiliate links) at the time of crawl.

I don't see how adding 2-3 links to some high authority sites is "gaming the system". Isn't it supposed to be good to link to quality sites that would be useful to visitors.

[Michael Martinez]

Roger, I had the impression (perhaps a wrong one -- as I've not been feeling my best lately) that you had a thin affiliate site. 100 pages a thin affiliate site does not make. Maybe your site is saturated with promotional links but that's a different matter.

Unless those 100 pages are all landing/pitch pages -- in which case that's a superlarge thin affiliate site (I guess).

Anyway, if you're already providing value in terms of information spread across 100 pages of content then adding links as you propose makes sense.

But not having seen your site I'm at a loss to really grok what you've got and where you think you could go with it.

Simply linking to a DMOZ page, that's really not useful for anyone.

[Hazo]

I've never linked to authority sites just for the hell of it. In fact, I pretty much agree with everything Kaus said.

In the future, I can only forsee myself possibly linking to sites like GA. I have never seen the point in linking to G, DMOZ etc, just for the hell of it. That in itself seems to be some sort of way to try and game the SE's.