The above headline is sure to make some people very upset, especially those SEO professionals who are dedicated to delivering ethical services. Luckily, the headline is just a ruse.
As with most things worth having, high search engine rankings do not come easily or quickly (there are exceptions, but your site is most likely not going to be one of them); however, there are countless services (new ones appear on a regular basis) that claim quick, painless, and most importantly cheaply achieved improvements in search engine ranking results. A good portion of these snake-oil services are built around directory submissions.
Before we move on, let us clarify that directory submissions in and of themselves are not a fruitless activity. The type of directory submission, however, is important. If the directories being evaluated for submission have been well researched and are on-topic or at least offer relevant categories for a listing, then they do have some value to bring to a well-balanced (i.e. directory links are not the only links) link-profile. The directory submissions which are the real problem are the ones that claim (or vaguely suggest) that submission to thousands of unknown directories will help improve your search engine rankings. Sadly, this practice is also present in some of the most well known search engine optimization firms—we won’t name any names but you can find them on the first page of Google for relevant industry terms.
With that said, let’s take a look at what these directory submissions promise compared to the real work many SEO companies offer. Here is a list of claims made by one of the major SEO companies that also offers directory/search engine submission services:
Claim: Your site will be submitted to thousands of search engines and directories
Problem: There aren’t thousands of search engines; and there aren’t thousands of worthwhile directories.
Claim: You can opt-in to have your site also submitted to ‘Free-For-All’ directories (read about Google’s view on Free-For-All links – scroll down to midway on the page)
Problem: A service that even offers an option such as ‘free-for-all’ directory submissions is providing a service in direct opposition to what Google states as being unwholesome and detrimental to your rankings.
But that is not all! You also get free SEO advice as part of your directory submission purchase. What a deal! Here is what you get:
Claim: They will verify that your page uses the correct design and HTML tags.
Problem: This statement is so vague that it means virtually nothing.
Claim: They will check whether your keywords are being used correctly and in the proper density.
Problem: There is no ‘proper density’. Even though good content is of utmost importance, keyword density is not. The sites ranking in top 10 for any keyword will have a wide range of keyword densities.
The final claim is that in order to achieve the best results, it is recommended that customers submit their website once per month. Apparently this will help keep your site in the search engines, since some of them tend to drop your listing after a few weeks.
No search engine worth being in will drop any site after an arbitrary period of time. In fact, major search engines consider repeated submissions to be spam.
The discussion about directory submissions is as old as search engine optimization, and is not likely to go away any time soon. The thing to keep in mind is that there is no easy way to the top of the rankings, and any service promising such results at a cheap price is most likely a scam. You are more likely to hurt your rankings (or future ranking potential) by using these types of snake-oil services.