I will relate that to Google’s recent behavior toward directories because i believe Google is in its ovulation period at this time.

All of this started in late 2007 when google entered its Premenstral Syndrome (PMS) when the first mood swing toward directories happened because before directories were loved by google and was used by most SEO Companies for their clients. This first mood swing caused google to penaltised all the highly advertised directories such as Alive, Aviva, Big Web Links, Directory Dump, and many more. This penalty caused these sites to loose their rankings in SERPs to an extent that they would not even rank for their own name. Followed by this mood swing, there was a temperature change and made google more angry toward these directories, and then Google lowered their Pagerank (PR). Most of these websites i listed were PR 6 or above, and they were lowered to pr 3 and lower.

With the penaltisation of these directories some of the new directories got high pagerank and much love from google (Sudden Mood Swing). One of this love was shown toward Directory Journal which was awarded a PR 7 in a very short time, and followed on the next update it was as well lowered to PR 6. Google’s sense of smell was becoming more sensitive as it was taking more steps into the PMS. They started sneaking in and peeking at what was going in the directory world. Many more directories were penaltised and were degraded in Pagerank. Google was smelling Paid Links which were there since the start, but Google’s sense of smell got more and more sensitive.

Many more directories got penaltised and many other normal websites were penaltised as well, so it spreaded from directories to all other industries. This new penaltisation, degrading of Pagerank, delivered a shock to webmasters. More and more webmasters each day stopped promoting their websites in the hope that if they don’t buy any links for their website, they will escape the penalty, and when i say webmasters I am specifically addressing directory owners. What they didn’t realize was that without promotion, they will loose their targetted audience which was once (submitters) not search engine. Without these submitters, the revenue decreased tremendously for directories, and the war clouds started appearing on forums like Digitalpoint. Many and many sore webmasters took their pain and put it out in public. One of the most stupidest mistake for the lack of a better word. Main strategy of business is not to show your weakness, but many of the directory owners did that. I know many who did not, so if you didn’t then this means no offense to you, but if you find this offensive then you have some sort of guilt.

From those weak threads, the upset directory owners started battling against each other and biting each others back. Instead of reuniting many started making their own groups. Many of the big ones like Jeff of Aviva, Chris of Alive, and many others left digitalpoint because there were so many useless threads focused on google rather than directories. One man who i respect for his deeds and still will respect him for his continuous effort for reuniting directory owners, and that is Pete of Forplex. Eventhough his site was penaltised, he did not reveal anything. He tried to get directory owners to reunite, but trolls and many other noobs could not understand the wise invitation. His countless efforts were ignored, but the useless threads were the one everyone paying attention to.

Google’s PMS impacted the webmaster community tremendously. Many and many directories starting to drop out. Directories that called itself a users resource started dying. No more admin/editor submission on many of the directories. Those who stopped i think deserve to stay like this because they were never really a source for users. They were just selling paid links and trying to earn the money. While many were dropping out, Google had another mood swing, and it was this week when multiple directories were given an authority status.

Phplynx
Romow
Gii.in
Ask-dir
Allthelook
Cascandra

While this good news were sent to these directory owners, Google had another mood swing, and lowered the pagerank of directories to PR 0.

Alive, Aviva, IDK, Elegant directory, Directorydump, ewebpages, forplex just to name a few.

Now one out of the case story you will see is Aviva Directory which was once penaltised, it got its authority status back, and Jeff the owner of aviva directory explained how the process worked out for him on his blog.

Shortly after as you notice aviva was in the list of downgrade Pagerank as i mentioned above.

What do you think is going on? I think Google is in its ovulation period, and it will get angry if you do anything that is against their terms, so basically don’t make Google Look stupid.

In my opinion i think this is just a phase that industry is in right now which will go away sooner or later, and the directories who stay and survive will be the ones to enjoy the glory on the later days.

I get the question how can i still keep my directory to earn profit when these Google Clouds are over us and waiting to strike the directories with the lightning. Well i just wrote a good post yesterday about Who is your Audience?, so you should definately read this post, and please please remember that the people who get you revenue are the submitters not google. If you keep promoting through adwords, and eliminate the factor of pagerank you can still earn. A perfect example of this is Romow Web Directory which used to be a very strong Pagerank 6 website and it was heavily advertised through paid links and various different methods. It was striked by google and the pagerank went down to Pagerank 4, but Romow did not stop promoting. Their team keep advertising more and more. They never stopped growing. Now as you see Romow has set a new standard in the directory industry by coming up with such a phenomenal design and content. It made romow a much more quality site which got them a well deserved authority status.

Now aside from directories, John Chow was penaltised as well. He had a good pr as well which was striked by google and brought down to a PR 3, but as you see from that point on until now John Chow’s monthly revenue has increased tremendously as well as the subscribers because all the smart webmaster knows the answer to the question “Who is your targetted audience?”, and then they focus on their audience.

I strongly recommend the users to eliminate every thing else and focus on your audience and that will bring much success to you. Now i wrote this post just to get few comments from the directory community. What they think of the article and such. Where do you think Google is going with this paid link, and thoughts and comments are appreciated.