Archive for April, 2007

The Web Directory!

The Web Directory

A web directory for those who are not familiar with them is a directory on the web that is like the yellow pages, it showcases links to other sites by categories. For example, let us say that you are looking for a bookstore online, what you would do is simply locate a web directory online, you can find these by suing the search engines and then in the search box of the directory you choose to use, type in bookstore and it will bring you to as many links as they have for online bookstores. Then you can pick and choose which sites you would like to go on.

Keep in mind that a directory is not the same as a search engine. Meaning that a search engine will provide you the highest ranking websites for your request and a directory will provide you with results from sites that webmasters have paid to published in their directories. If a site does not wish to be in a directory then when you type in your search in the directory it will not appear.

Directories are used more for web sites that are looking to get more traffic. You may not see Wal-Mart listed in a directory because they don’t wish to appear in one because they get natural traffic. Directories house links to sites that want more recognition and more natural traffic. It is like getting your proverbial foot in the door. There are different styles of directories; there are some that only specialize in religious web sites or certain languages.

Then you have directories that are like the Yellow Pages they have many sections with many different sites. If you are looking for something specific you can try the niche directories but if you are looking for something random and non specific then a standard directory is the way to go.

If you have a website that you own and are looking for some traffic then a directory may be right for you. Contact a few of them, tell then what type of site you have and then find out how much they want to have you list your site in their directory. They may work for you as well. Web directories are great for looking for a site and they are great for showcasing your site as well. See what they have to say, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

What is Page Strength?

Page strength is a metric that was created by SEOMOZ.com and what is does is it tries to judge some of the principles that can make a page of a web site rank high in the search engines. It is great for a quick look but it is recommended that the user take a more in depth look at the page. When you begin to look at the directory there are many factors that go into ranking your pages. Some rating may become deceiving in ways you think they may be helpful but are not. Here are some of the ratings that can be deceiving.

If there is a site that is 10 years old but has been a parking page for the last 8 years. If you have an old site that you have changed over to a directory in the last 6 months. If you have a site that you bought a vast amount of links to be spread throughout your site. If you have a site that has gathered links in a very obvious way. A site that is involved with a large volume link exchange schemes.

The way Page Strength works is that is scores are figured out by the data from outside sources such as Alexa or Yahoo. Each day millions of data gets examined by the search engines and because of the amount there are going to be data that doesn’t get looked at so it could affect your page rank. Here are some of the factors in page ranking are the links pointing to the URL, links pointing to the domain and the position where Google has the first four words of the title tag.

But you can’t always relay on page strength because it has been know to be inconsistent. The people that have created Page strength are Matthew Inman and Rand Fishkin. They have a site called SEOMOZ.ORG which stands for A Search Engine Optimization Metric. They basically describe page strength as importance and visibility of a webpage. The possible strength and ability of a web page to actually rank well in to the search engines. It focuses on the popularity of the information on the page, what links and how many mentions of the page that come across the web. This tool was created to satisfy webmasters, surfers and marketing professionals on the web