We are taking Uncover the Net off of our list of directories that we will recommend for clients and anyone else to submit their sites to.
Why? They are now adding the nofollow attribute to listings. That means no link love, no help getting a new site indexed, bottom line – no trust. I have not seen this practice in place with them in recent history. They most likely have fallen under the spell of Google’s FUD campaign against those selling paid links.
What is ironic about this is that Matt Cutts himself has stated in the past that he has no problem with directories that charge a fee “to compensate editors” who review listings and maintain a quality directory. These are not necessarily in the same class as paid links but rather involve editors having the right to be compensated for reviewing listings, both initially and sometimes annually, in order to ensure that a quality directory is maintained.
I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:
– Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.
– What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.
– If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.
If Uncover the Net was able to drive actual traffic then the link might be worthwhile. However I have never seen any significant traffic come from Uncover the Net, at least not enough to justify spending $59 a year or a one time fee of $159, especially seeing that you mark the listings as “not trusted.”
David Wallace, co-founder and CEO of SearchRank, is a recognized expert in the industry of search and social media marketing. Since 1997, David has been involved in developing successful search engine and social media marketing campaigns for large and small businesses.
