For some time now, we’ve heard that indexing websites in directories negatively affects their SEO positioning de but… is that entirely true?
It should be noted that the indexing of web pages in directories is a good practice to add to our SEO positioning strategy, as long as it is used correctly.
Below, we will present a series of recommendations that these directories must meet so that our website is not penalized.
Directory of the same or similar niche
For anyone who hasn’t realized yet, whenever we want to insert the link of our website into a directory, we must ensure that the directory is of the same topic or niche as our website.
If we insert our website into an unrelated topic or an inappropriate category, we may be penalized to the point of compromising our SEO positioning strategy.
Proximity is appreciated
One important aspect to consider when benefiting from good SEO positioning in web directories is proximity or location. When we talk about location, we are referring to the country where the directory is hosted, as it is always advisable for the directory and the website we want to list to be hosted in the same country.
Another concept of proximity is looking for directories that do not have too many subcategories, since the fewer clicks it takes to find our website within the directory, the better indexing or SEO positioning strength we will achieve.
Take care of the quality of the content and the source website
In its early days, the SEO strategy related to web directories was based solely on inserting a link to the company’s website and providing a title and a brief description. Nowadays, this is penalized for being considered «thin content» or poor content, as we have previously mentioned.
Currently, web directories have stepped up their game, and now, when we want to list our company in any of them, they require photos of the establishment, the company logo, a detailed and as original as possible description, as well as contact information, etc… in order to optimize all relevant business information as much as possible.
Lastly, it’s important to note that the links pointing to our website should not always lead to the homepage or main index. Instead, it’s advisable to distribute the links among the different sections or internal pages of our website in order to gain greater strength or authority and avoid being penalized.