Ever since Contextual Advertising has been created by John Scott and Jeff Behrendt, discussions regarding
CA vs. Directory Submissions have been popping up all over the place. I find it quite interesting how Matt Cutts admits that contextual advertising cannot be detected. He then adds that in the future Google will be able to, but I don’t buy it. If you do it smart and create a good write-up, then how can a spider label it as spam if the human eyes and minds won’t even be able to?
One thing about the advertising program is that we are dealing with one way links, deeplinks within related content. A great formula for success.
Now I have to ask myself how this is going to change the future of the Directory Business, and personally I don’t believe that it will change it negatively.
I think that actually the combination of blog and directory links is great. I have watched http://www.directorycontest.com go from a PR0 to PR6 overnight and when you look at the Google results for the term, you will see a combination of blog and directory links. That combination is very effective.
I believe however that there is a danger. When Google feels like they’re being screwed, they tend to lash out and many get hurt.
Can a large amount of directory AND contextual blog links give away the fact that those links are paid rather than given as a reference indicating that the website linked to is highly recommended for the keyterms within the anchor?
To tell you the truth, I don’t believe that Google will try to stop this trend. I believe they have grown tired of the cat and mouse game with search engine marketers.
IMHO Google is more interested in monetizing on their hard earned popularity and doesn’t want to upset anyone right now. Their new payout system is widely used by web marketers and webmasters. They are trying to tell us that we should report spam and stay away from doing anything that we wouldn’t do if they didn’t exist, but the days of idealism are long gone. Within Google. So in a few words:
I recommend contextual advertising. If you have a brandnew site with no PR and in the sandbox, a write-up from a good blog can give you instant traffic. How? Those blogs tend to rank fast for keywords within the write-up. And your links will be within that write-up, so visitors who are searching for something related to what you offer, are going to click on your links. That is advertising, not search engine spamming. And the fact that there is a nice side effect boosting your rankings, that is not your problem. It’s Google’s. And it really isn’t a problem. Those who are willing to spend a few bucks on advertising rather than registering 100 free blogspot blogs and myspace accounts, tend to also invest into their sites and provide web surfers with results which they can be pleased with.
And by the way, if you have a blog that has content related to furniture or home decorating, PM me.

Michael Dammann

P.S.: You can join in on ongoing discussions on Blogger Talk and Directory Contest.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS