Penalised directory - start afresh or repair?

[temi]

I read with interest Aviva directory owners battle to free if of Google penalty, its quite commendable and it worked for him, sadly loads of money he invested in sponsoring templates and so forth is now wasted and some of the new measure he introduced will not make hos directory the number one port of call for those seeking to promote their website, but they are necessary measures.

Given that directories are not that valuable as a web property, don't you think its much better and easier to start a new directory and get the promotion right than fixing penalized once popular directory?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

I would take the content, take the template, rebadge it and start again on a new domain with more content to prevent the links between the two sites being picked up.

 

[temi]

I would take the content, take the template, rebadge it and start again on a new domain with more content to prevent the links between the two sites being picked up.

My thoughts as well actually, it certainly quicker and cheaper to do it that way. Using historical example, I remember John Scott put a lot of efforts into getting penalty on BlueFind lifted but eventually he had to trow in the towel.

 

[deluxdon]

Given that directories are now that valuable as a web property, don't you think its much better and easier to start a new directory and get the promotion right than fixing penalized once popular directory?

Let me think on this temi :coolv:

DON.

 

[Resonate]

I agree totally with starting a fresh, either that or sell it im sure some one would buy it

 

[jhnrang]

Hi temi
I think all depends on how much effort has been put on a directory and how much you are associated with it emotionally.

In Jeff's case, he can't even think of starting a new directory with separate domain as the directory is named after Mrs. Jeff.:winkiss:

Except one or two points (like not accepting certain sites from certain niche) - I have no problem to comply with all those conditions for my penalized directory.

Also BRANDING is another issue. Haabaa is a very renowned brand name now. It would take another 2 years and lots of hard works again with another directory to create a brand name like Joeant/GoGuides or Aviva.

So I am for resurrecting the existing directory.

My own penalized directory had only 128 indexed pages left at the height of penalization ( 3500+ during penalization) . After lots of hard work- I have been able to get 80% of my pages re-indexed though it still has ranking penalization. But SEO is all about juice and indexing-isn't?

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Why do you think your site was penalised because it lost pages? I ahve to ask.

Penalisation is a MUCH over used word here. I get contact from people on a daily basis who are convinced they have a penalty against them, when in fact there are other (mostly) technical issues that can be fixed simply. Loss of PR can be the biggest influence on lost pages, a couple of quick technical fixes and you are away.

 

[temi]

I quite agree with you point, branding and so forth can take an awful lot of time and money.
I do not mean to be condescending but I think any of the "cheap directories" (I class any directory that use PHPLD, eSydiacat and other off the shelf script as being cheap) are quite easy to start, easy to get noticed if you know how to and also its easier to avoid the wrong kind of attention Aviva, Haabaa etc attracted in the past, so you sort of start from a clean slate so to speak.

Troubleshooting google penalty especially when you have sent out an awful lot of sponsored template etc etc can be time consuming and it could take years to get all the sitewide links that are probably triggered the penalty removed. Paid links are very easy to stop.... perhaps a better method is to do both, start troubleshooting process and start a new one on the side if you have the capacity.

BTW, which one is your directory?
Thanks

Hi temi
I think all depends on how much effort has been put on a directory and how much you are associated with it emotionally.

In Jeff's case, he can't even think of starting a new directory with separate domain as the directory is named after Mrs. Jeff.:winkiss:

Except one or two points (like not accepting certain sites from certain niche) - I have no problem to comply with all those conditions for my penalized directory.

Also BRANDING is another issue. Haabaa is a very renowned brand name now. It would take another 2 years and lots of hard works again with another directory to create a brand name like Joeant/GoGuides or Aviva.

So I am for resurrecting the existing directory.

My own penalized directory had only 128 indexed pages left at the height of penalization ( 3500+ during penalization) . After lots of hard work- I have been able to get 80% of my pages re-indexed though it still has ranking penalization. But SEO is all about juice and indexing-isn't?

 

[jhnrang]

@ OldWelshGuy

I think I know what is banned/what is penalization by Google - reckon I have been enough in the directory market to have those basic ideas.:wacko:


@ temi

Unfortunately some of your sites are also listed on my penalized directory - I am sorry to disclose.:sorry:

Yeah- all I have been saying is - one needs the capacity/energy/enthusiasm to create another renowned directory. And with Google's crackdown on paid links - it has become difficult to achieve high PR% if you don't have high PR sites yourself. ( I can see that you have them - so easy for ya).

 

[temi]

You may actually find this to believe, my flagship directory which is now PR0 and penalised is actually making more money now than before it was penalized, I think must of my customers probably come via Yahoo and they don't give a monkey about Yahoo's penalty ... I have not bothered to try to take it out of penalty, I have been pursing option two, and the new directory has been doing nicely though I am more caution about promotion methods I use for the new one

 

[jhnrang]

You may actually find this to believe, my flagship directory which is now PR0 and penalised is actually making more money now than before it was penalized, I think must of my customers probably come via Yahoo and they don't give a monkey about Yahoo's penalty ... I have not bothered to try to take it out of penalty, I have been pursing option two, and the new directory has been doing nicely though I am more caution about promotion methods I use for the new one

Great to know that temi I don't refute your claim - because although my penalized PR0 directory (previously PR6) has - 50 rank penalty on G, there are still some sporadic submissions on it. I reckon - they come from Yahoo where it ranks high for most targeted terms.

Regarding opening a second directory- I am for Niche directories in the future. Although I have 4/5 genral directories which are untouched by G, I am concentrating my energies on a shopping directory. It already has very good SERP for 2 main keywords ( online shopping directory & shopping directory ) - I am just buying time. I will g for more keywords/phrases once its more than one year old.

These days a webmaster must take everything slowly in regards to SEO.:wacko: Ultimately, I believe people will go for industry specific niche directories. So I am already investing my time and energy for them ( have another gambling directory too )

 

[OldWelshGuy]

@ OldWelshGuy

I think I know what is banned/what is penalization by Google - reckon I have been enough in the directory market to have those basic ideas.:wacko:

Sorry if I offended you I would put my head on a block and say that google does not remove 'some' pages when it penalises a site, it is all or nothing normally, and whatever it does is normally across the board. What google has probably done is prevent your site from passing PR, which in turn has stopped PR flow across your site, which in turn has resulted in the bulk of your site pages being dropped from the index for not having any degree of trust/link benefit pointing to them.

Google are getting really good at disguising how they handle sites selling paid links, and are quite happy to handle this manually as well in the following manner.

1. Someone (probably one of your competitors ) reports your site for selling links
2. Flag raised
3. Link map created for your site and cross referenced to other reported sites
4. Human visits site
5. Human applies Page rank flow block to site(s)
6. Pages drop like flies
7.? what next, what to do now?

In the old days it was simple. You lost your page rank, you lost all your pages in the index! Google get smart though, they are trying to undermine the entire 'selling pagerank' network thing.

You say it is easy to get PR if you are using your own sites, the danger of that is that Google are quite happy to bring down a network as they are to bring down a single site.

" don't link to bad neighbourhoods' etc

 

[jhnrang]

Its OK mate- I am not offended.

I just thought you were trying to make a "noob" out of me. Sorry for misunderstanding.

Let me tell you my experience about Google Penalization and my penalized directory.


I bought a domain in March-2007 and installed a script on the third week. I finished categorization on 28th March. I build some links that I know for 2 days and the PR update was on 28th April-2007. My directory became PR6 home-page and most internal pages PR4.

Within this time - I didn't care much-- but as it got PR6 with good inner-page PRs, I bought custom templates/mods et. and tried to monetize it selling PR pages.

In between I rented 3 PR7 links and one PR8 links (strong as it was from a blog with very few OBL) for fear of loosing PR the next time PR was updated. My ranking shoot up like hell. I was ranking on 1st page for a fraction of my keywords. I bought the PR8 link for $300/m using TLA.

On 28th August, 1 recieved 347 visitors from Google search ( was using Google Analytics to track). The next day my directory was gone from Google SERP. ( not ranking even for "yourdomain" ) . Finally I found it @ position #57. Since than the penalization started. Still it was generating $1K+ rvenue per month.
But I knew there was big problem as I was loosing around 150 indexed pages from Google per day. Finally, my indexed pages were settled @ 128 out of 3500+.
In between I discarded all paid links (rented) -- and only kept one 8 years old PR7 link that deals exclusively with directories. PR update happened on 27th Oct and my site's homepage remained PR6 but 99.99 categories lost PR. ( I only had PR o 128 pages which were found by G bots as they were indexed).

During the january update - my homepage too became PR0 - and all other pages PR N/A. I started my revival campaign since than as ideally my directory should have been still PR4 with all the quality backlinks it has. But as it was not the case- I figured -everything was being done by humans ( something happened with Rand Fishkin of SEOMOZ that many people --even in our industry don't know).:sorry:

After all my efforts, my directory now ( at the time of writing this post) has [SIZE=-1] 2,790 [/SIZE]indexed pages ( Google webmaster tools reads - Sitemap statistics:
Total URLs: 3857
Indexed URLs: 2821)

though its ranking has not yet come back.

I reckon -you have read how Jeff's Aviva has come back from Google penalty. I am hoping mine too comes back soon as I see good indications.

Regarding achieving PR for a site- I think a high quality PR7 link is enough to give you a PR6 as stated. If you want proof- I can still give you examples of how 2 penalized directories are still PR6 home-page and how other non penalized PR6 directories are riding on a single high-quality PR7 links.

But as John Scott says-- High PR is dangerous. So I think PR4 is Good, PR5 is excellent in today's world.

I hope now you understand why I reacted that way to your comments.

 

[scoobby]

why he should change the directory that put so much time and effort and make it a brand to a new one?ok i have to admit that now it is penalised i wont pay the big fee to get listed there,but IMOeventualyy it will come up from the (penalty) and rise...

 

[OldWelshGuy]

Its OK mate- I am not offended..............>snip

I hope now you understand why I reacted that way to your comments.

Absolutely,

No problem at all. I can understand it is frustrating and never intended to come across as being condescending

 

[temi]

OWG,
Not joining in the debate just to say well done for this step-by-step guid to how a website could be penalised, as if you do not have enough rep already, rep added

Sorry if I offended you I would put my head on a block and say that google does not remove 'some' pages when it penalises a site, it is all or nothing normally, and whatever it does is normally across the board. What google has probably done is prevent your site from passing PR, which in turn has stopped PR flow across your site, which in turn has resulted in the bulk of your site pages being dropped from the index for not having any degree of trust/link benefit pointing to them.

Google are getting really good at disguising how they handle sites selling paid links, and are quite happy to handle this manually as well in the following manner.

1. Someone (probably one of your competitors ) reports your site for selling links
2. Flag raised
3. Link map created for your site and cross referenced to other reported sites
4. Human visits site
5. Human applies Page rank flow block to site(s)
6. Pages drop like flies
7.? what next, what to do now?

In the old days it was simple. You lost your page rank, you lost all your pages in the index! Google get smart though, they are trying to undermine the entire 'selling pagerank' network thing.

You say it is easy to get PR if you are using your own sites, the danger of that is that Google are quite happy to bring down a network as they are to bring down a single site.

" don't link to bad neighbourhoods' etc

 

[vegabond]

Nope, I can't leave Allthelink. I love it and I will work on it to fix the issue. Sadly, i don't know how to fix this

 

[temi]

Nope, I can't leave Allthelink. I love it and I will work on it to fix the issue. Sadly, i don't know how to fix this

Vegabond, its very easy to fix, remove all the outgoing links or add nofollow to all out going link, ask those who link to you sitewide (if any) to remove the sitewide links, contact Google to let them know of the changes you have made and that is all you need to do

But doing that also kill the directory, maybe 90% of people who submit their site to smaller directory do so to gain PR and back links, nofollow kills both reasons so the directory will be as good as dead if the two things that attract customers are removed.

 

[smeagain]

Paid inclusion directories now have to be a different animal than they were in the past. The difference between a Link and a Directory Entry is the key to what will Probably work and what will forever be treated as a Link Farm with PR0.

 

[temi]

smeagain, there is a very thin line between the two (directory entry and a link) how would you differentiate them?

Paid inclusion directories now have to be a different animal than they were in the past. The difference between a Link and a Directory Entry is the key to what will Probably work and what will forever be treated as a Link Farm with PR0.