How to check if a directory passes PR?

[GlenB]

Can someone please tell me how I check if a directory 'passes PR.'

Also, are directories that redirect URL's pretty much worthless? What's the easiest way to check this? Any other things I should be checking for? Thanks.

[eitemiller]

[QUOTE=GlenB]Can someone please tell me how I check if a directory 'passes PR.'

Also, are directories that redirect URL's pretty much worthless? What's the easiest way to check this? Any other things I should be checking for? Thanks.[/QUOTE]

I believe these two questions require the same answer...

This directory does NOT pass PR, and is a worthless link: www.home-business-search(dot)com/Home_Business/
Hover over the first entry link, and read the text on the bottom of your web browser. Note how it links to "www.home-business-search(dot)com/cgi-bin/jump.cgi?ID=1991". That is a worthliess link, and will not pass PR.

If it is a good link, the verbage at the bottom of your browser will be the domain name it links to. Hope that makes sense.

Links disabled - don't want to promote worthless crap ;)

[GlenB]

Thanks for your response.

I believe I have heard of some exceptions to this rule; that there are a select few directories like yahoo(?) that can redirect URLs and still pass on PR? But for the majority of directories a redirect indicates no PR being passed, correct?

[eitemiller]

Dang, I didn't notice that Y uses redirects. Ok - someone teach me something - is PR passing through that link? If so, how? And does this link show in G on the link: command?

[GlenB]

Also, can someone explain about checking the google cache for verification of a directory?...

[eitemiller]

[QUOTE=GlenB]Also, can someone explain about checking the google cache for verification of a directory?...[/QUOTE]

What exactly are you verifying? If you want to see if the directory has been indexed by Google, type site:www.the-directory.com. If you want to see the last time Google cached the directory, do a search for the directory name, find it in the results pages, and click on "cached" - the date will be at the top-right.on the first line.

[smindsrt]

Glen-

I have a nice little list that should help you out. To my knowledge every site on our list gives a straight text link which should pass PR.

http://www.seo-kit.com/directories.php

I hope it's helpful. :D

Stuart

[GlenB]

[QUOTE=smindsrt]I have a nice little list that should help you out. To my knowledge every site on our list gives a straight text link which should pass PR.

http://www.seo-kit.com/directories.php[/QUOTE]Thanks Stuart, that list is very helpful :D

[GlenB]

sorry, double post.

[eitemiller]

[QUOTE=GlenB]Thanks for your answers too, eitemiller.[/QUOTE]

no problem - feel free to ask us some more questions ;)

[GlenB]

[QUOTE=eitemiller]no problem - feel free to ask us some more questions ;)[/QUOTE] Well in that case...this is a de-rail, but rather than start a new thread:

In your (everyone, not just eitemiller ;) ) opinion, for how much longer do you think using directories will be a valid and cost-effective means of increasing backlinks (and hence increasing PR/relevancy.)

The reason I ask is that it seems that directories are 'flavor of the month', and I'm interested to know how long you think this will continue.

[GlenB]

Ok, another question, this time back on topic:

How do you check if a directory is indexable?

Thanks guys.

[madmonk]

just copy and paste url (desired page url) into google. If found, it is indexed :)

[Web Gazelle]

I did noticed that Yahoo uses a tracking script. However Google says that a sure way to get your site found by the Gbot is to get a link in either Yahoo directory or Dmoz. So can the spiders crawl and find the site if it is linked with a tracking redirect script?

[l234244]

[QUOTE=GlenB]Well in that case...this is a de-rail, but rather than start a new thread:

In your (everyone, not just eitemiller ;) ) opinion, for how much longer do you think using directories will be a valid and cost-effective means of increasing backlinks (and hence increasing PR/relevancy.)

The reason I ask is that it seems that directories are 'flavor of the month', and I'm interested to know how long you think this will continue.[/QUOTE]

The general feeling are that directories are well respected by search engines (i.e http://dir.google.com and http://dir.yahoo.com).

[healthplacewebmaster]

[QUOTE=madmonk]just copy and paste url (desired page url) into google. If found, it is indexed :)[/QUOTE]

What if the home page is indexed, but the sub-category pages aren't cached, and have no PR? It would be easy to put a robots no-follow, no-cache, or something similar to prevent the actual outbound links from being crawled, or just the new "no follow" tag to prevent access to the lowest level links pages, right?

If a page isn't cached, is there any way to tell if it's been visited, and if the link to your site is helpful or not?

-Dave.

[l234244]

If there is no cache for an established directory then it is likely that they are blocking it from being index. However, on other occasions like what happened tobluefind, alot of their pages got deindexed because of duplicate content (many pages similar in structure). Check a few pages to see if any of the same level categories have been indexed.

The "no follow" tag, robots no follow tag can all be checked to see if its present or not by just looking at the source code.

[Mano70]

[QUOTE=Web Gazelle]I did noticed that Yahoo uses a tracking script. However Google says that a sure way to get your site found by the Gbot is to get a link in either Yahoo directory or Dmoz. So can the spiders crawl and find the site if it is linked with a tracking redirect script?[/QUOTE]
Yahoo uses 302-redirect links which will be followed. However, you are risking getting into the 302-problem with Google. And as somebody said earlier in this thread, 302-redirects don't transfer PageRank. I did a test on 302-redirects last PR-update, none of the pages linked to with redirects got PR, my control link with a plain link got.

[eCommando]

Have a directory with a plain text link also.