Twelve Attributes of Obviously Manipulative Directories

[Kristijntje]

Two weeks ago, Google took some severe action against a number of general topic web directories...

.Why?

Because of the Twelve Attributes of Obviously Manipulative Directories...

2. Anyone can get in - If you don't filter out low quality, spammy websites from being listed in your directory, even a pretty badly built algorithm can easily spot and remove you. Besides which, Google has been on a tear for years about bad links and bad neighborhoods and how they use the sites you link to as a signal for spam identification.

3. Marketing to Webmasters - If your forum signature at Digitalpoint (sorry to stereotype, but it's just so true) contains links to three directories you own, you're probably in possession of three obviously manipulative directories. I'm sure there's a couple exceptions, but if I were Matt Cutts, I'd just tell one of my QC guys (hi Ryan!) to go spend a few days trawling DP for directory domains...

full article: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-makes-a-...f-bad-ones