Directory Critic

Link Farm Clone Directories


Posted

June 1, 2007

Comments

(6)

Lately I’ve noticed a lot of clone directories and directory link farms are being submitted to Directory Critic. Here’s what I class as link farms or clones:

  • Loads of directories on the same IPs
  • Directories that have obviously had no effort at all put into them (some don’t even have a template or don’t even have the logo changed – how hard is it?)
  • Category clones (basically cloning an populated directory)

These type of directories have little to no value for the users of Directory Critic. In fact, that have no value to the internet as a whole. Many of these directories will go straight to Google’s supplemental index and never come out.

Another point to make is that if Google or other engines flag ones of these networks as a link farm and links to your site are consistent there is a chance that your site may also be flagged and it might effect your rankings.

So a notice to the people who are doing this, I know who you are, and I won’t be accepting any more of your directories. I have a script now that checks the database for other directories on the same IP, and it’s built into the directory approval process.

If anyone have any questions or problems with this email me 🙂


6 Comments so far

  1. Manish Mathukiya on June 1st, 2007

    I am thinking to suggest a few set of such directories soon. it is good move Damien, it will certainly help to make directorycritic a quality list.

    Cheers.

  2. Billy on June 18th, 2007

    Great job at keeping all the clones at bay.

    How does this policy apply to a directory on the same ip, same layout, but different categories, and starting out fresh with zero listings? Does this mean the newer directory is also a clone?

  3. thecritic on June 18th, 2007

    Hi Billy, I’ll email you about this.

  4. Adam Donkus on July 8th, 2007

    Yes it is all to easy to set up the php directory script, buy a category database for 10 bucks and make a few changes with the header and there you go. I bet you could pump these things out at a rate of 10 to 20 a day once you got it down.
    You would think they would want to add a little variation to differentiate them…guess that would be too much labor.

  5. Adam Donkus on July 8th, 2007

    I was going to report a few sites, and was looking for the report site link but it seems to have disappeared.

  6. thecritic on July 10th, 2007

    Hey Adam

    Yeah, I’m getting onto it with a bit of help from some submitters who use the list regularly. And I can tell some of the people who are doing it too. These dirs usually go supplemental quickly, so that’s another way to tell. Links for these dirs are useless. You pretty much hit the nail on the head with your blog post 🙂

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