Google once again tried to make an example of a few high profile directories by delisting them for their own name. One person suggested on DP that this is algorithmic, but I can guarantee it’s not. Why? Because frogengine is one of the directories. And the directory itself is only a part of a site and what was meant to become a lot more than just a web directory.
What makes no sense to me is that the blog and my forum have been hit as well.
Sure, the purpose of the directory is to generate revenue. It also is a directory where I add sites I myself find useful regardless whether I know the owner or have been paid for a listings.
I see that the ones delisted are all on digitalpoint so I can also make a safe bet that the Google people have been reading thru the directory section of digitalpoint which makes sense. That section is out of control.

What I hope will happen is that Google is going to find better ways of disabling link juice to pass. Whatever will happen to this site is not up to me, but I will keep running it regardless of what Google does to it.
The loss of traffic has been around 30 percent. I still have regular readers and people visiting the blog thru all kinds of non paid for links out there.
Needless to say, the submissions to the directory have dropped. My other directories are not penalized so they keep me alive.

Now, let’s say every directory penalized gets back into their old Google status and business continues as usual, what will be the lesson learned from this timeout?

I personally don’t see what lesson there is to take out of it other than “don’t buy links for the sake of pagerank”.

I also am not sure how exactly the algorithm now values links from frogengine neither do I really care.
Most of my search engine rankings had nothing to do with directories. They were for terms like “cool sites” and people used frogengine to find them.

Maybe I should have done a better job increasing usability by adding quality sites. Maybe I should have not hung out on DP.

The bottom line is that I find it shameful how so many directory guys now try to come after those who have been penalized.
Just because they might not get out of their listings what they once did should not give them a right to attack those they have once bowed down to.
I personally am a huge fan of the Aviva Download Blog and also Chris Hoffman’s new blog.
Maybe the Google employees should take some time reading thru those and then say that those blogs are worthless just because people submit to the directories attached in order to manipulate rankings.

Adding a blog to a directory is something that gets you a lot of non directory related traffic and brings end users to your directory like nothing I have ever seen.
Google has gone overboard by penalizing the whole domain name.
I hope that this blog is going to rank again for it’s original phrases. My forum might or might not, I really don’t care. But this is not just a directory blog, it’s a diary I’ve run for the last 3 years which many friends of mine read. And also I hope to reach out to more and more readers.

On another note it’s interesting to see that the regular attendants of SEO Conventions (the ones Matt and other Google employees hang out with) have now moved up a few notches and not been touched, even though they clearly make most of their profits from people buying listings in order to increase their Google rankings.

The directory business is an ugly business. Being hit like this is an insult, especially when looking at the majority of spam directories that their owners take no pride in. But who knows, maybe this is a blessing in disguise and it’s time for me to forget about search engines and worry about the quality of my sites only.

I firmly believe that overall Google rewards quality. I just think that in the recent past there have been decisions made based on the advice of spammers like Greg Boser and I think that it’s a big mistake for people like Matt Cutts to allow guys like him to get too close.

Anyone with more information or opinions, feel free to post them.

Hope that everything will even itself out for everyone.

Keep reading this blog and keep visiting Aviva’s and Alive’s.
And don’t waste your time in the digitalpoint directory section. The hyenas have taken over. Use your judgement when it comes to which directory you should submit to if you do submit to directories. No tool can replace that and the majority of the crowd on forums will guide you in a way that will only benefit themselves and some of their closest associates.

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