Link Building Using Online Directories

Here is an interesting e-mail received recently into the offices of Betwixt. The correspondence came from a well known online business directory (identity removed).  

Hi Paul,

We are discontinuing the xxxx section of the xxxx.com Directory.

We do appreciate the support that we have received through the years, but after an extended period of struggling to develop a viable local and online business directory, it became apparent that the number of listings were not going to reach the point where the xxxx Directory could compete with other online business directories.

Added to that was the recent crack down on paid listings by the search engines. We were advised that continuing to host our directory of business listings could be viewed as providing e-commerce sites with a back door entry page and paid links.

Despite our arguments that the xxxx section provided a valid service to our uses and clients, the algos could not be engineered to see our point of view. To avoid problems with the search engines and preserve the health of the entire xxxx.com Directory, we made the decision to eliminate the offending section.

It was not an easy decision. We realize that many of our clients depend on these listing for a steady stream of convertible traffic. Shortly after we removed the copy referring visitors to the xxxx registration pages, our Yahoo! and Google referrals improved drastically, confirming our suspicion that hosting the xxxx pages was in fact hurting our overall performance.

We had many years of hard work and development and quite a bit of revenue invested in
the xxxx.com xxxx Directory. However, under the circumstances, we really had no choice.

We do offer direct advertising, which does not truly replace the benefits of the xxxx listings, but still allows commercial sites to be an integral part of the xxxx.com Directory. If you are interested placing a text ad in the main xxxx.com Directory, please visit xxxx for additional details.