Why Link Pages & Directories Might Not Work

Mar 4, 2008 - 7:57 am 12 by
Filed Under Link Building

A WebmasterWorld thread touches on a simple topic, the topic of link pages. Many sites have them, a page that contains links to link partners. Some of these pages are labeled "resources," some are labelled "partners," some are "directory," and some even "links."

The characteristics of the page look a lot like the ones you find for a search on resources page in Google. They have tons of links on them, sometimes they are organized by category, sometimes alphabetically and sometimes not organized at all.

It is the location most old school link exchangers use to place links back to those they exchange links with.

Why might these pages not work?

I like how WebmasterWorld moderator, minnapple, put it, so I will quote:

The main problem with link pages is that everyone links out of them, but no one links to them.

Many "links" pages are not even included in google's indexed because of lack of internal link support of the main site.

And if they are included, they don't look natural. What page links out to a hundred different places and doesn't have a similar count of links coming in? These pages.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google December Core Update Done, News Publishers Hit Hard, Frankenstein AI Recipe Horror & Happy New Year

Jan 2, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Some News Publishers Saw Big Declines With The Google Core Update

Jan 2, 2026 - 7:51 am
Search News

(John) Mueller Report Of SEO Memes (2025 Edition)

Jan 2, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Search Tests Blue Send Button In Query Box

Jan 2, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Why 404s Don't Matter For SEO

Jan 2, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

John Mueller (Personally) On If Schema Helps With LLMs & Google

Jan 2, 2026 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: Google Testing Unverified Local Results in Web Search?