Back in the “old” days, we used to submit our sites to a couple hundred directories, and they’d rank like “instantly”. Those days are long gone, and with it most of the crappy directories that we used. Some directories survived though, and of them, Directory Journal, has asked me to do a sponsored review of its services. So yes, that means I got paid for this post, and no, that doesn’t mean I’m biased: I would have refused to do the review if they demanded I wrote certain things OR if I thought you, as a reader, couldn’t benefit from this post.
The reason Directory Journal and some other directories can still survive is because they do editorial reviews of sites they list in their directory, and as far as I’ve been able to tell, they really do a pretty good job of those. If you check out a category like Business Software, you’ll see a couple of listings, and when you click one, like the one for Fuel Quest, you’ll see that along with the homepage link you get up to 3 deep links you can submit. Now Fuel Quest doesn’t rank top notch with those links yet, but they do rank second page on some nice terms when they’ve only got 2-3 links, one of them being from Directory Journal.
I’ve investigated some more sites, and it seems that these links do help. After seeing that I dove into why that is true, after all, to be able to give away link equity, a site must have some of it first. If you check out the Majestic SEO report for the site, you’ll see they’ve got an awful lot of nice pages with pretty good backlinks, acquired through multiple methods. They’ve got some free WordPress themes to download, not one but a couple of very decent blogs with some real quality, unique content and some nice tools for webmasters as well. In all: they’ve earned their links, and have quite a few of them, which explains why a link from the domain would help in your rankings.
So I think I can honestly say that I think investing the $159.95 for a permanent listing along with 3 deep links is worth it if you need a couple of extra links, and that Directory Journal belongs in the small list of directories that you can still use and feel good about.
The only thing that is tough with directories is that it’s difficult to determine how much paying to be included in one has an influence on rankings.
I have a few blogs that I’ve submitted to directories like Yahoo for $299 yearly and BOTW blogs for $75 but I was already ranking 1st or 2nd (depending on the day I checked) so it’s hard to know just how much (if any) it improved rankings for my other keywords. I’ve heard other people swear by them though.
I just wonder how much link equity is passed through on one of the sub categories that have no rankings at all?
I suppose I should note that in looking for directories none of them ever seem to have page rank in the sub categories anyway…
Chris, could you please tell me from your experience … Does yahoo directory worth 299 / year ? I mean, did you feel an improvement on your search engine results or PR ? I just launched my Rental apartments in Toronto , Canada and I want to carefully spend my budget for getting good results from search engines. Since submitting to directories is a bad choice, maybe Yahoo remains (still) an option ? Is you yahoo directory listing shown as backlinks in Google ? Thank you.
Hi Yoast –
I am sorry to say that it is my belief that it is not good form nor puts you in a favorable light by accepting a ‘paid review’ of a directory site (or any type of site for that matter), even if they do not have editorial rights over your copy or conclusions.
Yes, you informed we your loyal readers of the fact that you were being paid, but though we would like to believe that you aren’t corruptible, we all know that ALL of us are human and prone to rationalizations.
We don’t know how much you were paid — $5, $150, $3,000 — nor do we know if you are getting a referral fee. Nor do we know the methodology that you used to to come up with your conclusions. Maybe you were only paid $150 so your review was not complete because you didn’t get paid enough to justify the time. These are just some of the questions that come up in your loyal readers minds
Now, please don’t hear that I am calling you dishonest, I am not, but it is my opinion that by accepting any money to do a review of a product does not enhance your reputation, it is more apt to tarnish it. You would never find Consumer Reports taking money to review a product. I believe this should also be your policy too, as there a many of us who trust your judgment.
I always love when I see socialist minded people attacking people for accepting money for whatever think.
Go and make money dude…don’t be a complainer. Yoast makes money from this blog, he has banners on the right, referral banner also…does this means he’s corrupt or something? No, he’s just trying to make money damn it. We all do. That’s the way the world works today.
So please…don’t spread your communist propaganda here. I don’t care if you’re brainwashed by thinking money is bad. But stop spreading this here, okay?
Cheers
If you have a complaint about Joost’s blog at least show yourself. I hope he was paid much more than $3000, the guy has earned his place over the years.
Jen, you can buy a review anytime for that amount ;)
The guy’s got to eat. Keep up the good work Yoast!
Yoast is honest about his earnings and did a review with a honest opinion he told us.
The information about how much Yoast earned is good info too, it makes us aware of the fact that there is the possibility to earn money on the net if you work hard for it.
Trigg, I’m no journalist, I’m no saint. I have to eat, so yes, I charge for reviews like these. $500 in this case, if you wanted to know. The only thing I can do is disclose OR not post. The latter would mean making less money from my blog, thus being able to spend less time on it. If you can’t live with that… Well than I’m sorry to see you go, but your moral standards are a tad bit too high for me.
Hey Trigg, you do what you want with your blog and leave Yoast to do what he wants with his.
It’s none of your business whether he chooses to accept payment for a review – that’s totally his choice and he WAS totally upfront about it anyway. If you didn’t like the fact he got paid for the review, don’t go with his suggestion & don’t buy a link from these guys.
Journalists/writers/editors all get paid for their opinions & reviews (their salary) – why shouldn’t Yoast earn a living from his?
There’s certainly no law that says he cannot earn an income in a way he chooses from his site (notwithstanding illegal topics…), so I say more power to you Yoast. Review away, paid or not – I don’t think any less of you for it, nor do I expect the VAST majority of your readers will either.
Eran
RE: “You would never find Consumer Reports taking money to review a product…”
Their information is not free. You have to subscribe to the magazine or website for access reviews. Would it make you feel better to pay Joost a monthly subscription fee? Personally, I don’t see any difference.
Thnx for the review Yoast. I always used paid links in my linkbuilding campaigns and some of them are directories. The only requirement I have is that it is a one time payment, I’m not a big fan of recurring yearly payments for my paid links :)
Another great resource I use is this one, lot’s of reviews of high PageRank directories.
Thanks for the info! I had honestly never heard of DirJournal before.
I’ll have to check them out.
Hey Yoast, thanks for a great post with great info! Thanks man!
“great post with great info”… lol
Well maybe that link was just what he needed to get to 1st place on a good keyword :)
hey yoast…
I deeply appreciate that in the first para you have admitted that you are been paid for this article.. only few people can accept this.
Thanks for this information.
I am another one that disagrees with going paid reviews. I follow several influential people who blog, and do reviews, and explicitly wont accept payment. It tarnishes the perception no matter how innocuous the reality.
Perception is reality, no matter how honest you may be (and I’m sure you are).
Well Richard, I disagree, though I accept your opinion. I don’t do paid reviews often, but I do do them, and I’m not about to stop doing it :) Those other influential people probably make enough money from other sources of income to not have to worry about money, or they just make other choices. I respect all of that, it’s just not going to change my opinion.
As I accept your Joost. I can certainly understand the earning necessity, and having followed you for a while I am also sure you’re journalistic integrity is maintained.
Plus of course you could have decided not to mention when you get paid, and you didn’t.
So maybe its just me ;-)
Hi Joost, I want to know if yoast.com give you to eat? I mean, you live with this site?
If so, please do not ever quit the comments and participate more actively in the discussions or, almost, replay to the contact form messages. ;)
I’m the marketing partner for a small IT consulting firm. This is an extremely competitive
category. 2 weeks ago, I re-created http://mlans.com/ website using WP and Thesis and did my
best to cover the SEO basics, though I’m sure it could be better.
I wonder if paying DirJournal would be a good use of my money. We are self-financed and on
a tight budget.
Thanks Joost, always glad of an opportunity to place good links. Found another affiliate opp in the process!
Thanks for the review Joost. It is always great to get another opinion on directories that you have to pay for.
To those that are complaining that Joost got paid to for the review, wake up and smell the concrete! Be grateful that Joost is ethical and reveals that it is a paid post!
Joost, this is a digression but I can’t find your pressthis talk with Darren Rowse of Nov 27th 2009. The RSS feed for the talks only goes to Oct 27th 2009 and then in December there is a notice saying it moved. Can you please provide a link that has all your talks or a new RSS feed in the place of the original on your site? Thank you.
Lots of people on the web make money from their blogs through paid reviews. Very few of them disclose them.
So it shows how honest Joost is with his readers. I believe johnchow too does review posts – just to name one.
Directory Journal is really a great directory – specially its blogs which are regularly updated with high quality informative contents.
Also to talk about directory resources – http://www.greatdirectories.org is one of the most upto date resource site.
I have no problem with paid reviews. We all have to earn a living. However, that’s why I tried to contact Directory Journal. My main website is supported (barely) by Amazon and AdSense in the sidebar.
So, I went to the category at DJ where I’d be listed, and clicked to see one of the listings in a related sub-category. (In this case, Science and Technology » Anomalies and Alternative Science » Alternative.) I landed at a website that’s for sale, alternativescience dot com, and it’s basically a link farm with a pop-up ad, as well.
Then, I tried to contact DJ, and — after clicking to send the info to DJ via their contact form — the contact form refreshed with red letters saying (repeatedly): Notice: SmartyValidate: [validate plugin] form ‘contact_form’ is not registered. in /home/journal/public_html/libs/smarty/plugins/function.validate.php on line 47
All of this does not give me confidence that DJ is a red-hot place to list my websites.
If you have a way to reach DJ, other than the broken contact form, you may want to let them know about these issues.
Good feedback Fiona, i’ve contacted DJ with this, we’ll see how they react!
Fiona, This is Hasan from Directory Journal.
The URL that you mentioned has now been removed. The site was added by one of our editors (not paid for) because it was a good resource back then. We have 13000+ active listings in the directory and most of them have been added by our editors who keep adding quality sites on a daily basis.
This is no excuse but sites like DMOZ and Yahoo Directory have loads and loads of dead links. We started back in 2007 and are trying very hard to maintain the quality of the site.
The error in the contact form is a genuine problem in the script but I have to tell you that it’s rare and happens when someone spends a lot of time on the contact page. To resolve this, we have installed a support system which would have tickets and live chat options in case a visitor has any questions or concerns. We will announce it on our blog, twitter and Facebook page when that is ready.
Please email me hasan at dirjournal dot com if you have any other questions/comments/concerns and I will be more than happy to answer.
Glad to see a new post on the site here. I was wondering it you were no longer adding content, I love reading your site I just wish you posted more
Thanks for prompting me to think about directory inclusion. I haven’t yet paid for a directory for http://www.handyguyspodcast.com/
I have tried to submit to DMOZ but that’s such a black hole when you submit. I guess when you have a limited number of $$$ to invest would a directory like this or adwords be a better spend?
Thanks
“You don’t know what you don’t know” applies tenfold when it comes to the vastness of our online space. We just need to remember that (as with anything else we pay for) its ultimately up to the consumer/client to weigh the pros/cons, investigate when needed, and (probably most helpful to me), tell other people about the “good” things we’ve found.
It seems a little backwards to me to criticize the messenger before seeing the message.
Thanks! Good to know – I’d wondered bout them … they’ve done a nice job adding value to the the typical directory format.
Another good idea is to get your website listed in the Yahoo directory and it ought to be submitted and maintained annually, provided the SEO budget allows. The reason listing in these directories is important (why it produces link-juice), is because directories like this are human edited, pay for submission, based directories of websites. The algorithms of crawler based search engines, such as Google, I believe, tends to place a higher level of importance on websites that have been reviewed by a human visitor from some of the more important directories. Not forgetting good old DMOZ.org, of course, which is free.
Joost, thanks for the review, paid or not.
As to the comments, I think Joost, like anyone, has to disclose when they are paid for a review. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that they do but I’m guessing Joost would have anyway.
As to whether someone should be paid to write a review, why not? I’d be willing to write a review if someone wanted to pay me or provide me a product (I wanted). I think we all can make decisions on whether to read an article or follow a blog… based upon our beliefs. If you don’t think someone, in this case Joost, should get paid to write a review, then don’t read the article to begin with.
Joost, love your WP plugins!
Cheers,
Jeff
I wonder if any of the people who are telling the folks who are against paid reviews to shut up are aware of the irony of their comments. You approve of Yoast posting his opinion for pay, but disapprove of these commenters posting their opinions for free, out of simple conviction. I suppose if they were getting paid to post their dissenting comments, you would all stand up and cheer. Because needing money is ample justification for anything, I guess? As long as one is doing something to pay their bills, then any questioning of it’s ethical or qualitative value is off-limits. Sounds a little backwards to me, but what do I know–I’m writing this for free.
Yoast, you are a talented expert with marketable skills and a following. The idea that you could not survive financially without accepting “gigs” like this one strikes me as a fairly thin justification. You are certainly well within your rights to do whatever you please for money…presumably you’ve factored in the loss of credibility and decided that $500 is an acceptable compensation for being taken gradually less seriously with each sponsored “review”. So that’s fine. But you might want to stop pretending like it’s an economic necessity–that hurts your credibility just as much, IMO, because it shows that you don’t understand your own real value in the marketplace. (Or it shows you are too lazy or unmotivated to find more ethically-airtight ways to leverage your value.)
But again, I am not using revenues from this comment to pay my bills, so clearly it’s eligible for criticism (unlike your noble putting-bread-on-the-table post).
Sorry, I meant Joost, not Yoast. It felt a little weird when I was writing Yoast, but it was in my head because someone else used it above. I do know your name is Joost, it just slipped past me in the moment. :-| (I also know the proper use of “its”, and that I got it wrong in my comment. ;-))
I think Joost, like anyone, has to disclose when they are paid for a review. This, obviously, doesn’t mean that they do but I’m guessing Joost would have anyway
Joost de Valk It shows alot about you personally by being upfront. Most would not say a word and then throw a sly affiliate link to boot. So thank you for your honesty.
Secondly I really have been enjoying your blog as a beginner seo fanatic, it has alot of valuable information that most websites will charge you before revealing. So keep on keeping on!
Thanks for your input on the Directory Journal. I will check it out.
I appreciate you being forthright that you were compensated to do the review. It actually helps me trust your review more.
I’ve researched a few paid back link tools and have been using one for the last month and getting great results.
For folks here to be taking sides on either the relative merits of Joost’s disclaimer or his desire to make his living as he chooses is moot. The FTC state quite clearly the new Compensation Disclosure Guidelines. In other words, Joost, just like every other Internet marketer, is required to do so or face possible prosecution.
Yes I understand that Terence by law you are supposed to reveal it but most do not and he could just as well simply stated oh I forgot to add it, so the worst possible scenario would be he would have been forced to add it. So he is law abiding, smart, honest and covering his tracks. Don’t see the big fuss but that is just me.
Dear Terence, I have to slightly correct you here :) Though I do disclose, and like the new regulations, I’m not a citizen of the US and thus I don’t have to abide by their rules. The FTC cannot force people outside of the US to do anything :)
Yes, I live in the UK now and I thought that way too until I started working for a US company and was briefed by their legal counsel. Read this http://www.harvardilj.org/print/101 on “Constitutional Limits on Extraterritorial Jurisdiction: Terrorism and the Intersection of National and International Law” and keep on doing what you’re doing, I’d say.
I’ll keep disclosing, just because I think it’s the right thing to do :)
Hey Joost, one question man. I see that you post articles on people who pay for sponsored posts, what about guest posts, do you accept posts from people who are willing to submit a valuable post for free in exchange for a link in the author bio?
Hey Darko, I do sometimes accept guest posts, but I am very critical about guest posts :)
Cool, is there a way to contact you for a guest post suggestion?
Here are a Contact page, http://yoast.com/contact/ . But didn’t work… I write almost 2 message in different occasion without a answer.
Hi Cristian, I try to answer a lot of my email, but at 50+ messages a day, that’s not a real option anymore…
Through my contact form. Can’t promise I’ll answer though, get too much mail to do that :)
So is there an ALTERNATIVE way to contact you? :)
Hi Joost,
I think you’re with this post not objective. It’s important for your state and the state of your website to stay objective.
I understand that you have to eat, but I think this is not the right way.
Hey Henri, what makes you question that objectivity? I’d like some arguments if you make bold statements like that, not just a statement.
i’m with you on that. they’ve been sponsoring Joost for a while. Sorry Joost, but the way it looks, it’s just a paid plug, not a review.
I just don’t see the difference. I mean if you sell an ad slot to another business, are you not saying that this company is a legit company? You put your neck out on the line by selling them an add slot, So common sense tells you. What benefit is it of any author, that is not in it for the long haul to post illegitimate ads and reviews? Absolutely no benefit is my point!
The same can be said for a guest post, paid post or any other form of advertisement. I think the reason the USA has laws in place like this is for people that purposely mislead the reader. But here is the kicker if you have been producing quality non-misleading content for years and you did not disclose you were paid to review a product in one article I can say the FTC would not even think of pursuing the issue.
These type of laws are intended for authors, businesses and ect that continually mislead the target audience, that is what bad internet marketing ethics is. To prove my “moot” point I just ran across what the FTC considers misleading and look here it is exactly as I described..
In addition, an act or practice is unfair if the injury it causes, or is likely to cause, is:
* NOT OUTWEIGHED BY OTHER BENEFITS and
* not reasonably avoidable.
It is safe to say Yoast.com is in it for the long haul, does not post misleading content and gives us free of charge tips and techniques, these things outweigh any internet marketing law on the books.
“I just don’t see the difference. I mean if you sell an ad slot to another business, are you not saying that this company is a legit company? ”
Ha, good point. People angry about Joost offering reviews have faulty logic. Offering banner ads is ok, but, an ad in a post…well, that’s over the line. …Why? It’s semantics.