Search Engine Forums, SEO Forum

Does Google penalize sites that have backlinks from paid directories? Does it matter if they are strictly paid directories or a combination of paid, free & link exchange directory?

As long as the links are not sitewide - there is no harm!

I think google does't penalize on paid or free directories . Don't worry about that ..keep going .

I'm pretty sure you will get penalized more for a link exchange then you would for a paid one.....Google has no way of knowing that you paid for it.

If they penalized then why wouldn’t you just add all your competitors to the link exchanges?

Might be the caution of directories is to avoid penalized, link-farm like directories. Maybe if a directory site is well-indexed, have good PR and running high moderation, it will be fine.

BL never cause of penalization or harm .. Only the link value is based on the neighborhood

It's ok to list your site to paid directories for as long as it's not sitewide. You also need to make sure that the directories have good reputation.

I read somewhere that blog commenting and forum postings are more effective techniques than submitting to directories.

I believe social bookmarking is the way to go to receive quality traffic

I wouldn't think so because Yahoo directory is paid and it has been called one of the best directories for SEO. Cheers!

No, Google won't penalize you for paid directory links. But if you happened to get any other paid links, google will surely punish you in some way..

Not at all, as long as your links are related to each other. are they?

I don't think that a site can get penalized on its back link profile.

There are directories for a certain niche so if you are worrying about getting penalized, try to target directories with relevant niche.