The reason that speculation has arisen
is that though there was a seeming spate
of directories hit, the number of them
– up to 60 or so that we know
of – is relatively small compared
to the number of directories out there,
hundreds or thousands passing on PageRank.
One theory suggests that people are
using Google's controversial paid links
report form, implemented last spring
to a furious response. However, shortly
after Matt Cutts' invitation to report
instances of paid links, Cutts clarified
that he and Google's webspam team weren't
interested in reports on directories,
only instances similar to what he cited
on his blog.
Nevertheless, Cutts followed up that
question with some rules of thumb for
evaluating a directory's value:
- 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.
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