Listing your site in link directories

Here’s another soft spot with me: Owners of sites whose content is comprised of links and advertisements are constantly soliciting link partnerships.

You might hear that search engine rankings are based on having other sites linked to your site. This is not entirely true.

Yes, search engines include ‘link popularity’ as a factor in determining rankings. However, the links are weighed. If the content of the site linking to yours is related to that of your site, it gets a substantial weight. If not, it may get a lighter weight, or, it may give you negative points.

Because the goal of search engine marketing is to help searchers get to pertinent information, I advise our clients that these lists of unrelated links are a waste of time. Don’t include your firm in a site whose name (and URL) says they sell quality DVDs.

Adding your URL to such a site could hurt you more than help you.

Primarily, you are associating your practice with a site with unrelated content. That does not boost your rankings. Links to sites with related content boost your ratings.

Next, some search engines blacklist sites of links and advertisements. That definitely won’t boost your rankings.

In addition, search engines may lower rankings of your site if they think you are using “schemes” to boost your rankings. (Those search engines that do not have this in their current algorithm will add it, as they see their own search result usefulness decline, and users switch to more reliable search engines.)

Furthermore, you may be associating your firm with a company that has unethical business practices or a company that is ignorant and is marketing themselves as such. These are both minor points, but in the grand scheme of things, you want your quality of service to show on many levels, so such associations aren’t the most valuable to you.

Keep in mind that there are directories that are legitimate and that would be useful to you. Directories of lawyers, community directories, and association directories are all great places for you to establish your link popularity. And they may also be useful to people trying to find a lawyer.