Is it worth me setting up a directory for better google SEPRs?

Over 90% of my traffic from organic search engine results comes from Google. I'm thinking about setting up a subdomain for a dirctory, directory.mydomain.com. I will offer free reciprical link listings that will link to the directory and to my home page of my main domain. I'm not at all bothered about the rankings of the sub domain but do you think this will help rankings with Google for my main domain?

Thanks

The reciprical links should help with PR but it will only really help with SERPS if the pages that link to you have relevancy to your home page.

a categorized links page like directory is much better than an uncategorized links page what just contains different links .. it will be helpful if you exchange links with quality and wesbsites with same theme.

If the link has quality it doesnt matter if they got any relevance with your website it will definetely will help your rankings.

A concept that took off like wild fire and died a sudden death two updates ago. Don't waste your time those useless directories are dead!

raz

Thanks all. For the time it will take to set up (i.e. not very long) I think I may as well do it.

Thanks.

You posted as I was posting! Don't waste your time, read the PR Update thread first.

I would spend that valuable time creating original content.

If you really want to create a good directory, then make one with hand-selected sites that are the most valuable on the web for your theme and link to them without any reciprocation. This sounds 100% contrary to what everyone else is doing but contrary thinking frequently pays! (;

Even if my main domain is getting a non-reciprical link? The reciprical link would go to the sub domain (directory.mydomain.com) but as far as Google is concerned my main domain has got an extra backlink for nothing.

What about if the directory only contained links that were relevant to my site?

Not exactly. Unrelevant quality links will still count. yourdomain.com and oursub.yourdomain.com are considered by Google almost two different domains. IMO making anyone signing up link to your home page and they get a directory listing on your subdomain will benefit both parties. I think it would work but you still should be careful and only accept limited amount of sites which are QUALITY and IMPORTANT. Good luck!

Thanks. My site is primarily mmultimedia software development stuff. If I made it an IT-related only directory do you think thatwould be relevant enough?

Thanks.

No

That raises an interesting question. Clearly, to an extent, Google treats subdomains as different sites, for example allowing multiple entries in a search result. However, for the purposes of reciprocal links I wouldn't be so sure. It's quite possible that the following links:-
subdomain1.domain_a.com -> domain_b.com
domain_b.com -> subdomain2.domain_a.com
... could be treated by Google as reciprocal.

... and if it is done to an extreme (like a directory on a sub with thousands of outbounds and the main wth thousands of inbounds from the same sites) it may very well be seen as spam. Then the directory will go to PR0 and the main domain will get a lower trust factor. Not a wise move in my view - not in today's day and age. 2 years ago, yes. Today, no.

That's exactly what I have on two of my sites; a hand built directory with only 5 to 6 links out, two of which are to authority sites and each page contains two snippets of articles that are pointing to the articles on the site (about 50-60 word snippet each).

Left it like that for over 6 months or so, and I'll start exchanging links from there (by replacing the non authority sites) in a three way link exchange, (not in any perticular order but very random) to benefit both my sites and the linking partner.

The big difference is I'll be able to give out quality links (only 6 out going from content pages) and I'll expect quality links from content pages.

I also have space available on the right hand column of each article page, which contains snippets of articles or description of content from other pages. In between these snippets there can be similar ones for link exchange. No more than 3 per page!

I never brag about the number of links to my site, its a slow process, it's a boring process, but boy is it effective!

For my main site, every site below it in the SERPs has at the very least twice, if not 3 to 4 times the number of links my site has...

That doesn't mean that I don't do el cheapo 500 directory submissions at all, but it does mean that I don't rely on them or stop at that.

raz