The past year has brought about a new trend in SEO as google started sending messages to webmasters about unnatural linking. Being in the directory business (we develop a leading directory script) I’ve certainly seen my share of bad linking practices.

I just want to say BEWARE of people offering 100 links for $10, or Search Engine Ranker tools, or even Directory Submitter Tools. I’m looking at one right now on a Black Hat forum where it automatically posts links to Guest Books, Clip Bucket, Zen Photo, PHP Weby, cms2today, Hubdir and more, all with the click of a button. Sadly, people who use the tool are hurting themselves unless their goal is negative SEO.

This is EXACTLY what brings about the unnatural linking penalty, and we have even run a test on an auto approval directory (see below) and that is exactly what happened, and then we deleted all the links! (also see Link Removal Requests)

With phpLD what some people have done is have AUTOMATIC approval of links to their directory, so basically all submissions are accepted. These are often referred to as Auto Approval Directories or Instant Approval Directories.

Let it be clear this is not something we condone or support here at phpLD. People who last in the directory business are the ones who put quality first. Sometimes maybe a directory makes a little less in the short term, but even at say $50 per month, that is a lot money over a few years, and if you setup your business right, you don’t have to spend hours every week, though it helps to do a little work in the beginning.

If you have problems with spam, please talk to us in the forums. We have worked hard to create more and more tools to make sure you don’t get spam, or that spam is automatically deleted, or that robotic submissions are identified and denied.