Many directories vanished from Google

[emils]

Hello everyone,

Fortunately this isn't my problem, but this is something i have just noticed very recently and i guess it worths paying a bit of attention to.

We have a huge list of (a few hundreds) directories on various topics. Many of these can be found by browsing this site too. I usually have someone adding sites into these directories for me. We have been using this list for a few months already and it went ok. Last time the list was used was about one month ago and it was all ok.

A few days ago i asked the person that works for me to start inserting some new site into the directories. Yesterday this person came to me and showed me something very interesting. Out of all directories which are generally doing fine, the ones that were asking for a reciprocal link in return are all VANISHED from google. PR=0, and they do not show in index anymore (site: etc returns nothing). I could not believe this. We had about 30 sites which asked for a recip link as a condition for accepting the site. All are vanished - all at once. All others are ok, no significant changes detected. An example for such a banned site could be tatet.com.

I believe that Google has increased the filtering on non-related reciprocal links, particularly on directories which have a lot of outbound links. I do not know the real cause of this, perhaps the presence of many bad quality signals... i guess it is up to more experienced SEO guys here to come to a conclusion on this.

So what i am getting out of this, is - directory owners, stop asking for reciprocal links when submitting to your directory, or you risk being banned.

[pedstersplanet]

If I'm correct, and I'll eat humble pie if I'm wrong, a site cannot be banned by a link to it from other sites, whether they are related or not.... If Google started to do this, competiters would have a field day and bung links left, right and centre on dodgy sites.

[emils]

Originally Posted by pedstersplanet

If I'm correct, and I'll eat humble pie if I'm wrong, a site cannot be banned by a link to it from other sites, whether they are related or not....

You are absolutely right. However these are directories which then provide a link to the site. Therefore they end up actually having like lots of recip links with various, often poor ranked sites.

To me, this situation looks like a dramatic change in google. I've seen sites going banned over time but they are like here and there. This time it looks different. The entire section in my list, of directories which require a link back, has gone blank at once. This is too much to be a simple coincidence.

[pedstersplanet]

I do see what you're saying....I don't require a link back, but it's grateful....

Furthermore, I'm finding it hard to obtain PR in deeper pages, doubt it has anything to do with mine being dynamic... Oh well......

[cbp]

Out of all directories which are generally doing fine, the ones that were asking for a reciprocal link in return are all VANISHED from google. PR=0, and they do not show in index anymore (site: etc returns nothing). I could not believe this. We had about 30 sites which asked for a recip link as a condition for accepting the site. All are vanished - all at once

I can't verify this as I have not checked, but if it is correct, then I think its a good move on Google's part, IMHO.

CBP

[rlrouse]

My Directories seem to be doing better than ever.

[fathom]

Originally Posted by emils

Hello everyone,

Fortunately this isn't my problem, but this is something i have just noticed very recently and i guess it worths paying a bit of attention to.

We have a huge list of (a few hundreds) directories on various topics. Many of these can be found by browsing this site too. I usually have someone adding sites into these directories for me. We have been using this list for a few months already and it went ok. Last time the list was used was about one month ago and it was all ok.

A few days ago i asked the person that works for me to start inserting some new site into the directories. Yesterday this person came to me and showed me something very interesting. Out of all directories which are generally doing fine, the ones that were asking for a reciprocal link in return are all VANISHED from google. PR=0, and they do not show in index anymore (site: etc returns nothing). I could not believe this. We had about 30 sites which asked for a recip link as a condition for accepting the site. All are vanished - all at once. All others are ok, no significant changes detected. An example for such a banned site could be tatet.com.

I believe that Google has increased the filtering on non-related reciprocal links, particularly on directories which have a lot of outbound links. I do not know the real cause of this, perhaps the presence of many bad quality signals... i guess it is up to more experienced SEO guys here to come to a conclusion on this.

So what i am getting out of this, is - directory owners, stop asking for reciprocal links when submitting to your directory, or you risk being banned.

I would suspect something other than being a "directory" is causing your headache.

Please post links or PM me with them and will take a look.

[jawn_tech]

I've been working on a directory of my own I was going to publish soon... now I'm not so sure.

If I do, just to be safe I doubt I'll have the word 'reciprocate' anywhere in my text.

Historically, I've never been fond of reciprocal as a requirement, but do see it's value in some situations. I can also see Google's view that in some cases the directory of reciprocal links may be like a distant cousin of link farming, except with categories.

Perhaps to side step that stigma, and to have a legitimate directory that won't be seen as such, would be to make sure each category went to a separate page of links, and that page of links was totally dedicated to that category / topic. Know what I mean -- keep oranges with oranges and apples with apples. Most already do that, perhaps the danger is with having apples and oranges linking out from the same page. Though, does Google see the relevancy of a site as a whole, or look at the theme of each page individually? I'm not positive about the answer to that, but I would think the latter because there are large sites that cover a range of topics with outgoing links from those pages. To do the same and call it a 'directory' -- may dodge the accusation of 'spamming', or reciprocal links for the sake of PR.

As for reciprocating, perhaps it's done best under the table, the old fashioned way. That is, a polite email requesting a reciprocal link first. Just a suggestion...