An article directory is, in SEO, a website where users submit articles and place a link to their own site in the text or author box. It has nothing to do with a table of contents. The method is historical.
How did it work, and what changed?
Directory operators earned money from ads, and authors received backlinks. The articles were often short and published in large numbers. According to reports, link building through such directories was common in the 2000s, and the directories lost importance after the Google updates Panda (2011) and Penguin (2012). Google says Panda became part of its core ranking systems in 2015 and Penguin in 2016.
What applies today?
Google’s spam policies list articles or guest posts with optimized anchor text, and low-quality directory or bookmark links, as link spam. Links from such directories are risky and are typical candidates when cleaning up a link profile.
Example
A typical entry has a short author box with a link.
<p>Author: Max Muster, <a href="https://www.example.com/">Heating Cologne</a></p>
Sources
- Spam policies for Google web search (link spam) – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Ranking systems guide – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- What is an Article Directory? – ClickRankclickrank.ai
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