Free Directory Sites Dropping Out Of Google?

May 15, 2012 - 8:57 am 93 by

DirectoryA WebmasterWorld thread has one SEO noticing that Google has started to purge their index of the free directory submission web sites.

He said that about 50% of the free directory submission web sites are no longer to be found in Google. I searched for a bunch and about 50% of my searches returned results and 50% did not.

Here is one example:

Google Removes Directories

The big question to me is, is this new? Did Google just remove a bunch of these directories? Is Google going to remove more? What criteria did Google use to decide which ones to remove?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: David Harry is analyzing data and currently after testing 500 directories and says 16% are delisted from Google. So a lot less than 50% but David is researching more and maybe if that list of 500 was increased to 5,000 it would be higher?

Image credit to ShutterStock for directory book

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: May 27, 2025

May 27, 2025 - 10:00 am
Bing Search

Bing Tests Sticky Footer With Related Searches

May 27, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Technical SEO & Programmatic SEO Are Different

May 27, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Tests AI Overviews Follow Up In AI Mode vs Dive Deeper in AI Mode

May 27, 2025 - 7:31 am
Bing Search

Bing Travel Stories

May 27, 2025 - 7:21 am
Google

Google AI Overviews With Image Carousel

May 27, 2025 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Bing Search Update? Crawl Changes?