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This is Grumpy SEO Guy, episode 130. What are link directories and should you use them? You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy, and I'm sharing with you the strategies that have helped me successfully run my SEO agency for the last 14 years. In this podcast, I'll be sharing my knowledge and experience, discussing tips and strategies, and trying to help you cut through the confusion that permeates this industry. If you listen to this podcast, you will know more about SEO than 99% of people on the planet. Ready? Let's get started. I'm the Grumpy SEO Guy. Let me tell you why I'm grumpy today. I'm grumpy today because some people are confused about link directories. So in this episode, that's what we're gonna talk about. But before we do that, some reminders. New episodes come out at 9am on Wednesday, Central Standard Time. That's for the podcast. If you're listening on YouTube, it's gonna be a little bit after that. If you leave a comment on YouTube, I try to reply on Wednesday, but sometimes it's not until Thursday. If you like the podcast, please subscribe. If you have a question, you can email me at hellorumpy SEO guy.com if you have a question and you want to ask a lot of people, you can post it on the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit, which is Reddit.com r grumpy SEO guy. If you'd like to support the show, you can do so@patreon.com grumpy SEO guy and if you'd like to set up a zoom advisory call, you can email me@hello, grumpy seouguy.com and we can talk more about how to get that scheduled. Okay, on to the show. So I want to talk about link directories, but before we do that, my lawyer tells me that I have to say this right now. A quick disclaimer before we get started. Everything I say here is based on my experience and opinion from 14 years in the industry. I don't officially know how Google or any other search engines work. Everything I say here is hypothetical and based on my experience, this podcast does not constitute advice or services. What worked for me may or may not work for you. Okay, back to the show. And you've probably heard of this, and part of the reason that we're talking about this is we do A lot of research. When we take on a new client, we do a lot of research, like research into the client's website and into the competition. And part of the reason we do this is because it helps us develop a roadmap, which is a guideline the client can follow, usually over six to 12 months. And it includes changes to the websites, you know, what pages you're going to build, backlinks to, how quickly to build them, what the anchor text should be, and so on. Anyways, as part of the. As part of this process, as part of the research, we look into the currently existing. We look into the backlinks that the client already has, and we often see a lot of directory backlinks. So that's part of the reason we're doing this episode. So let's just start off by talking about what it. Like, why are there directories? Why do directories exist? So a long time ago, before search engines, if you wanted to find something, you. You had to use a directory. So maybe you wanted to learn about art, Right? I'm just using this as an example. Maybe you wanted to learn about art. So you'd find an art directory and it would have links to many different art websites because there were no search engines. And if there were search engines, they weren't really as useful as they are now. So one way to find relevant websites was to use a directory. So anyways, that was a long time ago. Now we have better search engines. So anyways, so that's kind of why, like, people are familiar with directories. Like, anybody who's been online for a while has heard of directories, because it used to be a pretty. I don't want to say a big concept, but a pretty noteworthy concept. So anyway, we have been seeing a lot of backlinks to clients from directory websites. And so there's a few problems with a lot of these. And that's kind of what I want to talk about. So one of the things that we notice at first is a lot of these directory websites are exactly the same. They have the same layout, they have the same theme, the colors are often different, but everything else is exactly the same. So they're copies of each other. Okay. It's like somebody used a template and made a whole lot of these sites. Okay? So another problem that we see with these a lot is that they're often all on the same IP address. Now, we have other episodes that talk about this, but basically, if you have many sites and they're on the same IP address and all of those sites are linking to you. That's a footprint. Okay? That would never organically happen. You do not want a lot of backlinks from websites on the same IP address. And part of the reason for that is because if they're all on the same IP address, it means they are probably run by the same person. So it is unnatural. Okay? It's a footprint. Anyway, so we recently were looking at a website that had like 20 directory backlinks from 20 different websites all on the same IP address. And I was like, okay, okay. Anyways, so that's another. That's another kind of problem with directory sites. Here's another problem with directory sites. They are often link farms. Let me define a link farm for you. A link farm is a website that has too many OBLs, outbound links. Okay? And I don't know. I don't look, I don't know where the cutoff is between too many and a good amount. I don't know what it is, but I can tell you this. Let me describe a page to you and you'll see what I mean. I want you to imagine a page on a website, and on that page is a line. So you're scrolling down and you have a line, and that first line is a link to a website, and then the next line is a link to another website, and then the next line is a link to another website, and so on for hundreds of outbound links per page. Okay? An outbound link is a link from your website to another website. Hundreds of outbound links per page. Do you think that looks natural? And there's no content, there's no context. It's just the name of the business and a link, and the name of the business is the link. So there's not even any. There's no content that is not part of the link other than maybe like at the top of the page or something. Okay, Spammy. That is super spammy. Okay, that is super spammy. Okay, so that's another reason. Like that kind. It doesn't matter. Listen, it doesn't matter how good you think a website is. If it's a link farm, it is spammy. Okay? So all of these link farms. I'm sorry, so most of these link directories that we're seeing are link farms, which means they have no value. Okay? So anyway, but I'm making this episode because people always ask, well, so should I get listed in link directories? Look, there's one exception. There is one exception to that, and that is this. Sometimes for local SEO, if you can get listed in an actual local directory from a real company or a real organization in your town. Okay, so not some made for backlinks nonsense, but a real company or group in your town that has a real website that really links to real businesses. If you can get listed on that, that will help you. Okay. Because it's relevant and it's local, that will help you. But that's not what I'm talking about in this episode. All right? That is not what I'm talk. Talking about. The kind of backlinks that I'm talking about are. The kind of link directories I'm talking about are super spammy link farms. Okay? You do not want to get backlinks on those. I mean, they're probably not going to hurt you, but they're not going to help you. So probably just stay away from them anyways. So there's a couple reasons, though, that we're seeing so many of these links. Number one, and I'm just guessing here, number one is probably because they worked with some SEO agency who's like, we're going to get you some backlinks and then they bought link directory backlinks. Yeah. Anyways, another reason is because people think that link, like, for some reason, the idea of link directories is still a thing, and people think you should be listed on them. And so they go out there and they try to get listed on them and you can buy your way onto them, but they're not going to help you. Why? Because they have hundreds of outbound links per page. Come on. Anyways, like, there's literally no purpose to these sites other than other than posting backlinks. Like, literally, literally none. Okay. So anyways, and then another reason I think, I truly think there are some websites that just look through the Internet and build links to everybody. Like, it's, it's probably. It's probably not even a person doing it. It probably just happens. And so like I said, you know, they're, they're. They're probably not going to do anything bad, but they're definitely not helping you. And when your strategy is to get backlinks, probably avoid link directories. Unless you're talking local SEO and you're specifically getting listed on the directories like I mentioned. Okay. So if that's not happening, you should stay away from them. Anyways, I hope this episode explains what link directories are and if you want to use them or not. And let me know what questions you have. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to subscribe. And if you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review. It would really help the show out. I hope this episode was helpful. If you have any questions or want to suggest a subject for a future episode, you can contact me on Reddit. My username is Grumpy SEO Guy. You can visit the Grumpy SEO Guy subreddit or you can email me@hellorumpyseoguy.com if you email me, please either whitelist my email address or check your junk folders because I've been told that my replies are going into the junk folder and it's probably because we're talking about things like SEO and backlinks and I think those words will classify an email as spam. And if you want to support the podcast because it's the best source of SEO information on the planet and it's free, you can do so@patreon.com Grumpy Seoguy and I will talk to you later. You're listening to Grumpy SEO Guy, the SEO podcast that doesn't waste your time with nonsense that doesn't work. Join us next Wednesday for another episode. Sam.