Questionable Directory Tactics

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swirt

Forum founder. Former Owner.
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I just received an email from a client, passing it on asking if it was a wise choice to do what the email was asking.
bedandbreakfastHOME.com said:
Good day
1) Would you like to add your listing link www,bedbreakfasthome,com/yourbbnamehere/ on your website? BedBreakfastHome.com "Link-back" shows potential guests that your property is featured on one of the top Bed & Breakfast / Inn guide. This will also enhance your website's search engine optimization. If you are interested then please use the html source code below to ensure that viewers clicking the badge will open an independent browser window, without leaving your website. They will go directly to your "Detailed Listing Page on BedbreakfastHome.com".
Please contact your webmaster to help you add our link. This will not take more then a few minutes.
Here are some issues I have with this:
  1. "top Bed & Breakfast / Inn guide" is a bit of a stretch - For the area they are referencing, they don't show up in the first 10 pages on a search for [city state bed and breakfast]
  2. This will not enhance your website's SEO it will enhance theirs. In the case of the inn in question, there is even no link from this site to the inn, so there can be no SEO benefit.
  3. When you get to the page that they have created for your listing the two biggest things on the page are these banners (below) which are clearly aimed at getting money from innkeepers as opposed to doing what they should be dong, attracting travelers. These banners are of no use to travelers, they shouldn't be there.
    moneyGrabNow.gif

My advice was, no this company is misrepresenting itself and does not have your best interest in mind. Never reward spam. Never list with a directory that doesn't show up well in search engines or have some other method of delivering traffic. Never get caught in the hysteria that you have to be listed in every directory ever made. If you reward this kind of behavior they just keep building more directories that never deliver appreciable amounts of traffic and guests.
Linking to your listing on a major well-established directory can be a good idea if done right. Linking to some little directory with an inablility to see that in order to make innkeepers happy, they have to have a keen focus on travelers, not innkeepers is a bad idea. Remember, in the eyes of the search engines, you are judged by who you link to and who links to you. Who links to you can rarely cause harm (a bad site can't hurt your site by linking to you). Who you link to can cause you harm.
 
I get more link and SEO e-mails than Carter has pills every week. I hit delete and am done with it. I link only to things that reflect what I do as in the link with Jackson House for trails, and links to horse things or motorcycle things - but all are ones that I checked out first as quality. I have one link to a B & B that I am not happy with because the owner thinks her web site is great. I cringe.
 
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne
 
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne.
If that is betterbedandbreakfasts.com, a listing on their site can help, because they do use direct links to your website and the site is set up in a way that spiders can get to the links to your site. Their claims about being the top 5 on Alexa is somewhat questionable because Alexa is quite easy to manipulate.
As always with any claims of how much the directory will help any given B&B depend largely on its ability to show up in searches for your area. So anyone considering listing with the directory ought to see where it shows up for "[city] [state] bed and breakfast" (without quotes) as well as city state B&B and city B&B and city bed and breakfast.
And of course if you can find anyone listed on that site that still uses a public tracker (fewer and fewer are using them these days) it helps to see how much traffic the directory has sent to them.
 
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne.
If you were a brand new inn and needed help getting "found" then maybe I would consider them..but, you have so many other links to your inn and show up well in listings. I can't see where listing with them would be of any real benefit at this point. Who will go to this site to find a B & B? Who even knows they exist??? Just another directory trying to make some money from You! I would pass it it were me.
 
bedandbreakfastHOME.com said:
featured on one of the top Bed & Breakfast / Inn guide.
OK, I'm a "picky, picky grammarian" per Bree, but it should be "one of the top Bed & Breakfast/Inn guides."
=) Kk.
 
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne.
If you were a brand new inn and needed help getting "found" then maybe I would consider them..but, you have so many other links to your inn and show up well in listings. I can't see where listing with them would be of any real benefit at this point. Who will go to this site to find a B & B? Who even knows they exist??? Just another directory trying to make some money from You! I would pass it it were me.
.
We haven't renewed with them - I don't think we ever did pay them, actually, I think it started as a freebie but we never saw any traffic. I have been getting their emails and invoices for months now and I trash them. I just wondered what swirt's thoughts were, especially since they discuss their Alexa standing.
Jeanne
 
bedandbreakfastHOME.com said:
featured on one of the top Bed & Breakfast / Inn guide.
OK, I'm a "picky, picky grammarian" per Bree, but it should be "one of the top Bed & Breakfast/Inn guides."
=) Kk..
Oh, yeah, I picked up on that right away. Subject-verb agreement is a big peeve.
 
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne.
muirford said:
Swirt, I wonder if you would comment on this one as well:
If you prefer, your $85.00 renewal fee can be mailed to:
Better Bed and Breakfasts
P.O. Box 775
Brunswick, Maine 04011
We are one of the top 5 most popular bed and breakfast directories online according to Alexa. It is important to be listed in our directory, not only to be seen there, but to also have the quality and relevant links back to your own website, which Google uses to rank websites. We have been online since 2001 and are very well established and ranked in the search engines. You will not get the same results by listing with newer directories.

Jeanne
OK, here's an open mouth insert foot situation...I was at a class for website promotion/SEO and I was talking about directories. One woman in the class said, 'Are you listed on this directory?' and mentioned the one you posted. I said, in all my newly found SEO knowledge, 'No, they don't show very well on Google if I search for my inn-my town.' She said, 'Oh, because I own it.'
Well, at that time, 2 years ago, they didn't show very well. Now I can find them.
 
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