In the web directory world there was some recent developments last weekend.

For those that were not aware or do not remember, around the date of September the 9th Google issued web directory owners with a deadly blow - a SERP penalty. To cut a long story short, google was unhappy about many web directories and their general way of business. They had little value to end users and many were considered to be paid link farms.

A little later Rand Fishkin offered some general advice on why Google has been penalising bad web directories.

A little later Matt Cutts put out a post on the Google Webmaster Blog about webmasters buying and selling links that pass PageRank.

Within that blog post, me and several other directory owners commented on Googles view of web directories. Matt Cutts gave another response that had been written before. However, many directory owners include Aviva Directory owner Jeff Behrendt demanded more answers.

Matt Cutts replied to his comments, giving an explanation as to why Aviva Directory may be penalised.

General Comments included

• Don't require reciprocal links when allowing paid/free directory submissions.
• Don't use the authority/trust of old domains and 301 redirect them to your site to benefit from their link juice.
• Don't allow users to manipulate your directory system by gaining a higher PR backlink from "top hits" pages.
• Don't interlink with your other directories.

These reasons were given, and possibly further reasons outside of the public view. Jeffrey had corrected these issues on Aviva Directory, and also submitted his site for re-consideration in Google Webmaster Tools console.

Last weekend a search in google for Aviva Directory brought up Aviva Directory and its 6 site-links. From this result we can clearly see that the actions taken by the owner has allowed Google to give trust back to the site and allow it to rank highly in the SERPs again.

I have yet to check all of Aviva's keywords, but noticed they (the blog) are ranking well again for a popular search for phpld templates. In the last few days alone I have seen google to be re-indexing, as they have gained a further 100 cached pages since I first checked (although this may be just another google fluctuation).

In conclusion we can see that Google is willing to show trust to directory owners providing they do not make Google look stupid.

Aviva Directory has a lot of unique content. They have many blogs with useful and vitally unique content in it. Also, unlike many general directories the owner has hired editors to fill categories with useful content in order to make it a a quality resource.

My congratulations lie with Jeff for his hard work and not giving up, even though he was surrounded by many negative comments and dislike towards paid directories. Again, content is king and Aviva has shown this. I expect it will continue to remain as a well known paid directory.

Interested to here your thoughts.

__________________
Welcome to TalkDirectories - a great place to discuss Search Engines, Web Directories and other webmaster issues. Fell free to join our community today and start talking!
ITRcc Web Directory | Auroo Web Directory