Reciprocal directories to stay listed

A reciprocal directory is a “web directory that offers free reciprocal submissions”. This suggests that it’s necessary to link back to the resource you are submitting to. Reciprocal directories require you to link to them in order to have your site included. Usually, this link must stay if you want to stay listed. These types of directories are very stable in search engines and have good amount of inbound links.

Reliability is the main and most important aspect to look for in reciprocal directories. It is an important factor because if there’s no quick and proper reciprocation from the directory owner then there is no point in creating lots of outbound links from your site.

Another chief factor to consider is to make sure that you have placed a reciprocal link on your site before validating the form submission. Mostly, reciprocal directories are free of cost, but once they hit the upper PageRank, they convert themselves into paid directories.

Here is a list of a few top reciprocal directories with reasonably good PageRank, well-established domains and reliability in their response. Directory Delta (www.directorydelta.com), PageRank 6 is an example of worthy reciprocal directory. Another is Directory World (www.directoryworld.net) with 6 PageRank. Iozoo (www.iozoo.com) also has PageRank of 6. The higher the ranking, the more reliable it is.

Deep link directories offer links to inner pages

By this time, most webmasters and website owners know that getting other websites and directories to link back to their site is a very good idea to increase search engine ranking and thus traffic. Generally, most of the sites get back links to just domain name and the homepage only. Deep link directories offer links to inner pages. Deep link directories offer an opportunity to build links direct to sections, categories and content pages.

Deep links are links to specific pages within a website. For example, if you have a website for news and views, a link back to your homepage is fine. But what if you could also link directly to your sports news page, entertainment news, technology related news page and so on? Deep link directories thus link to the inner pages as well which not only improves the traffic to a website but also improves the rank.

Here is a list of a few top deep link directories. A deep link directory is a paid service, but you can choose whether you want to invest one time or pay every year. Excellent Guide (www.excellentguide.com) with PageRank 7 would approx cost Rs. 2399.52 p.a. While MozDex (www.mozdex.com) – PageRank 6 will cost approx Rs. 1437.60 p.a.

For one time investment, Kwik Goblin ( www.kwikgoblin.com), PageRank 6 is a good option. This site costs Rs. 2397 o/t. Another site with equal PageRank would cost Rs. 1917.16 o/t. The name of the site is Elegant Directory (www.Elegantdirectory.com)

Do you know about the page rank checker on Google?

Yes, this simple question has often troubled the mind of most of the webmasters. Many of them have acquired quality content and added attractive graphics and other ingredients to make their websites different and popular. But their site is just not on the top of Google. This is because they do not know how to check page rank on Google and increase it.

The answer is simple. One has to know what lies in the heart of Google algorithm, which is based on Page Rank, named after Larry Page who invented it. Page Rank can be understood as a huge electronic voting system.

The way to get good Google ranking is to get a high quantity and quality of links to web pages from important and reliable sources. The page that gets the most votes gets awarded the highest Page Rank, on a scale of 0 to 10. To check Page Rank you need to download your Google toolbar from the link, toolbar.google.com.

However, Google also takes into account the pages that cast the vote. Votes given by the important pages are of more weightage than the votes cast by relatively unfamiliar pages. This is referred to as link source importance. It is important that your desired key phrases appear in your anchor text as many times as possible, as it results in greater link quality. This is termed as text matching.

Once a site becomes established, Google renders more amount of trust to it, referred to as Trust Rank. It helps the search engines in determining sources’ reliability, often using age of the website as a parameter. The older a website is the more the trust rank is.

Thus Page Rank, text matching and trust rank are the three inputs any webmaster should use to make that magic wand, which will take their websites to desired heights.

Professional Networking

Professional networking on the Internet is growing across India and the globe. While linkedin.com and ryze.com started the revolution across US and Europe, there has been some activity in India as well. For instance in India, we see the rise of social networking sites largely for teenagers and students. Among the international players we have orkut and facebook. While in India Orkut is an alltime favourite, Facebook with all its applications is fast gaining popularity.

There are also several large Indian players. Notably Bharatstudent and Minglebox to name a couple. They seem to have some internet traffic and continue to grow. The professional networking space unfortunately has very few players. The only decent one that I came across was eliteindian.com (URL http://www.eliteindian.com). They claim to have 300,000 members and offer various services such as jobs, news, networking, etc. Speed of the site seems on the slower side and while one did see a few ads, one wonders about the revenue model given that job postings seem free.

Well need to get back to work. More later.