Google Removes Directory Links From Webmaster Guidelines

Brian Ussery reported that Google has dropped two important bullet points from the Google Webmaster Guidelines. Those bullet points include:

• Have other relevant sites link to yours.
• Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

At the same time, Google Blogoscoped reported that Google removed the dictionary link in the search results, at the top right of the results page. Related, I am not sure.

I speculated that maybe Google is going to go after more directories in the future. By removing those two bullet points, maybe Google can do this – without seeming all that hypocritical. In addition, I noted a comment from Google John Mueller at a Google Groups thread where he explained the logic behind removing those two points:

I wouldn’t necessarily assume that we’re devaluing Yahoo’s links, I just think it’s not one of the things we really need to recommend. If people think that a directory is going to bring them lots of visitors (I had a visitor from the DMOZ once), then it’s obviously fine to get listed there. It’s not something that people have to do though :-).

As you can imagine, this is causing a bit of a commotion in some of the forums. Some are worried, some are mad, and some are confused by the change.

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Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on social media at @rustybrick, +BarrySchwartz and Facebook. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio and disclosures, click over here.

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