While the value of a directory link can be debated, what cannot be debated is the fact that all back links are at the least a zero gain. Meaning, that it is a rare instance when a link to your website will penalize you. Since I own and operate my own Epic Directory I can vouch that they are still very efficient in pushing link power, providing that the directory or category itself is relevant to the topic of the site.
WL Marketing has several different options when purchasing directory submissions. I chose the 600 directories over a 1 month timeline, which included having a Google email address setup for the submission service. The cost for this service was $40. Over the next several months I am going to report here on the success or non-success of this purchase, giving you my thoughts as they submit and the success rate of such submissions. This will be done in a series of posts.
I would like to state my goals for this submission service. I hoped to gain 180 back links from the 600 submissions, which is a 30% rate. I would consider anything greater than that, a successful sale from this service.
The purchase was made on May 2, 2009 and after review of my site details, and some additional categories added by the staff of WL Marketing, my site was setup for inclusion in their processing.
May 4, 2009
Overnight I received word via email from WL Marketing that they had “updated my account.” After logging into their backend I found that they had begun the processing of my directory submission to the first set of directories:
2009-05-03 20:18:18 Status changed from New to Processing
2009-05-04 01:42:30 Status changed from Processing to Updated
Available to me was an excel download file that included my login details for accessing the new gmail account. I also received a list of 156 directories that my website was submitted to on the first day. Included in the details was the PR of the homepage of the domain, and the category to which my site was submitted. An initial look at the url’s appeared good. For purposes of privacy to WL Marketing, I will not release the directories they submitted to.
On opening the new gmail account I found I had already received 128 emails, and 7 emails labeled as spam. I first opened the spam folder and immediately confirmed that those 7 emails were in fact valid and I labeled them as not spam. So, out of 156 submissions last night, 135 of those submissions initially replied.
When submitting to directories or utilizing services such as directory submission, it is important for you to monitor the emails you receive from the directories themselves. Some of them will require you to confirm your submission. Out of the 135 emails I received, I needed to confirm 37 of those, or about 27%. Failing to confirm your submission will lower their success rate. In the excel file that was provided by WL Marketing I was told that those directories needing confirmations had already been done, but I was unable to confirm that via emails within the gmail account. In each case where I confirmed the listing, I received an additional email confirming that fact, so I have to doubt if it was done properly.
From the initial 156 submissions, two listings were approved and one rejected within 9 hours. The rejected one was because the site was not Thailand related… which of course means, my site should never have submitted to that country related directory. Of the two accepted submissions one of those was through the 37 submission confirmation that I had made earlier.
I have used wl marleting for quite some time now, they actually found me on the dani web forum. They have done countless link packages for me, and I have to say it worked I have seen results from their service, and at half the price of their competitors.
I presonally recommend them to everyone and they always do a fine job for me.
I can’t seem to get your RSS feed to work with my program. Do you mind telling me the url so I can read your posts on my own program?
Hi Larry,
http://50.28.25.105/~webified/feed
That should work for you, but if it doesn’t, tell me your program, and I’ll check things out.
Dropship, I appreciate the comments! Online endorsements are a dime a dozen lately, I wanted to actually analyze the submission services of WL Marketing. I’m not saying that you’re wrong, only that your statement is too broad to benefit the reader of this blog. Almost any online service will have its champions online. I’m not looking at just whether WL Marketing’s submission service is a “good deal” but also whether directory submissions themselves are a “good deal.”
The article is ver good. Write please more
I was reading through this forum tring to see if this company is good, actually i need to submit my classified site (www.telists.com) to multiple directories. I will try their service and see how it will work, I will start with the smallest package available and if it works i will take another package.
Hello, great and very useful research. I just started with them and just ordered two packages. How did the results end up ? did you see any difference in your traffic and backlinks? thanks
HiDennis,
Thank you for this information I was just looking at their site. I have had mine up for a year and a half with no success and was wondering what you final thoughts were being a year later.
I have used WL Marketing extensively for my website, there are some good things and bad things about them. The good things is they show their work. If you don’t do “unique” social bookmarkings then the social bookmarks stay. They even now offer Custom Packages the problem is, if you try and do a Custom Package and they do it wrong then they get mad at you and say we will no longer have any more e-mail discussions with you. So then you can’t ensure that your packages are done right, if there is a mistake done, your out that money. It is terrible customer service. Having said that, their articles and social bookmarking are fine. You all realize that it takes 3 to 6 months before most search engines pick up a directory? My suggestion is to do the 4,000 quick directory submission option. It costs less and it hits all the directories they offer, and as I said it will take 3 to 6 months for many of those to start showing up. Don’t do the unique bookmarking because those get erased, but the existing accounts (those that haven’t been banned) make for good social bookmarks.
I will be posting shortly a final article on this subject. But I can give a brief synopsis now of the end results. First, the amount of submissions reported in the 4th update, is the amount of submissions that ended up being accepted. So I got 173 links from this submission service. As mentioned at the start, I wanted to see 180, or 30% approval rate and got really close to it. In that aspect then, the WL Marketing test was successful.
In the terms of SEO gain, there was some, albeit small. There can be no proof of why a site gets PR… the content I produced on the site was good enough to get legit linkbacks from strangers I’ve never met or heard of. Most of it’s existing PR 4 likely comes from those links.
Thanks for the word on WL. These guys look like a decent set up and based upon wht you guys have said I’m willing to give them a try.
Really interesting post. Very informative.
Wow, welcome to SEO circa 1999. Link building is absolutely an outdated mode of SEO. Mass submission link building is most likely to get your website banned in rankings…or at least sandboxed for 6+ months. Then, on top of that, there’s no discrimination as to where the links are obtained.
Honestly, no one needs to be using these stupid, rip off, out of date services.
“My suggestion is to do the 4,000 quick directory submission option.”
Are you insane? Auto-sub = website death. Stay away from these quick link things. No real SEO company has provided these services of 2K+ quick subs since 05.
From looking at the site and the report, this is a link building scam. It most certainly is NOT SEO and will NOT benefit your website longterm.
I don’t even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I do not know who you are but definitely you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
I’m new to WL Marketing, but so far they have been VERY active with their customer service and always keep me in the loop. Last Saturday (which is a week ago from this date 1/28/12), they have completed one of my orders in 4 days (directory site submission) and the other (social site bookmarking) is in process and should be completed “soon”. I also spent very little $ with them, but because of their incredible customer service and getting one order done in one week, I’ve just signed up for another service, adding me to blogging sites (which they did say will take 7 days).
I will spend more money as I continually see how they work hard for their clients.
Definitely recommend them!
I have found them to be personable, they know they are dealing with a real human being just trying to get a new website off the ground, and I am happy they have one order done.
I did go to the order for directory submission service, some were processed immediately, some say they take several week because they manually process all their submissions and I have had one rejection. That said, WL Marketing did what THEY are supposed to and got me submitted to these search engines. What happens on the other side is not in their control. In fact, some I had to verify my email address but at least they are submitting me to all these search engines per our agreement.
I definitely recommend them.
It is a nice review, though, I can not access Part2-4. It gives 404 Not Found error. Perhaps, the pages had been removed or deleted since it was posted.
I used wl marketing a few times. I wasn’t impressed with the 100 Press Release Submissions service they offered. They sent me details of the 100 websites that they submitted my press release to. I logged onto each website and a lot of the accounts hadn’t been activated. I ended up changing the email address, activating the account myself and submitting the press release. Made me wonder what I was paying them for. Other accounts hadn’t been created. The other bad point is that they only ever submitted the press release to the free services which meant the press release never got published quickly, got rejected or had any of the html links to my website removed. (it makes the submission worthless). Overall I got my press release published 10 times of the 100 promised. I also ended up paying some the press release companies a fee to publish the press release with links. One of them was only $5 as well which considering they are an SEO company, I thought wl marketing would see this opportunity and add this service into their fee they charge me. They are cheap for a reason. Seriously don’t expect a good response from their campaigns. I have complained about their service and this was their WLMARKETING’s response…
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RESPONSE FROM WL MARKETING
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Thanks for your note! We always appreciate feedback! 🙂 Regarding this order, we do need to state that it is impossible for us to guarantee submissions for this type of service. The most common problem you are finding is the inability to login. This is likely because these websites do not keep accounts for longer than a year. Many websites will go through and delete inactive accounts. Some websites will delete inactive accounts after only a few months. So although we created an account when the order was placed, it no longer exists. We do our best to submit to free sites only, this avoids a hefty payment on your end, and also keeps the cost lower for our customers. This sometimes has limitations, such as no links present. We do our best to submit to those sites that only allow links, however, we still do post to websites that do not post live backlinks. This still gives clients promotional value. Also, we state that we generally see an acceptance rate of 30-40% of the press releases we submit. This means that not every site we submit to will post your Press Release. So we apologize if you cannot find your press release on certain sites you visit.
Wl did what I paid for, good results
DO NOT use WL Marketing. They will get you poor quality backlinks to your site. They do not pay attention to comments in your submissions to them for services. I’ve had several bad experiences. Yes, I was an idiot for coming back to them. I paid for an article submission to 300 sites and requested they submit to ONLY high PR sites. Most of the submissions were crap, even to sites that didn’t work. You’ve been warned.
Interesting, I’ve been using WL Marketing for a while now and I’ve found them to be quite useful! Good post though, thanks for putting this together.