index pages and Link Lists
 

ok, I've been doing some research on this board regarding Link lists.

www.domain.com/directory/
www.domain.com/directory2/

The URL's all have to look like the ones above?

www.domain.com/directory/page.html
www.domain.com/directory/site.html


The above is incorrect?

If so, May I ask why this is?

http://www.greenguysboard.com/board/...tory+structure

That's a thread that talks about free site directory structures. There are also a few other recent threads on the same topic.

I understand what they want.

I just don't understand why they are making me upload a bunch of directories with the exact same content in them.

You are not obliged to make the all the same... Think outside the box.

Alex

As far as I can gather its to do with doorway pages.

The idea is that having a doorway like index.htm and warning.htm which leads to the same content will lead google to penalize you for making doorways.
So the answer to that is to mirror the whole freesite in its own directory. Hence no doorway. But what you do get is duplicate content.

I have seen no evidence that either method is more successful in SERPs than the other nor do I quite understand the reasoning behind enforcing either of them. But thats just me.

RawAlex brings up a good point, another good point is just to submit to the top LLs and leave it at that. There are lots of different theories and opnions and it seems to be a bit of a grey area of what is the best thing to do.

Duplicate content is duplicate content.

Google doesn't care if it's in the same directory or on a different domain. If its indexed they know.

Like a multi-billion dollar company that has made its fortune through search technology isn't going to know any better..

Fascinating idea, prehaps I should use this methond when designing galleries as well. A different design for every set of recips. ;)

Duplicate content on the same domain and duplicate content on different domains is treated differently by google for sure.

I think you missed the point of what I said. I do agree that google will see whichever method you choose to make your freesite doorways/duplicates under the same light and penalize them in a similar way. So like I said I dont really know why some LLs enforce particular directory structures. But I do it cause I like their traffic, and after all its their site.

If it was really as bad as some people make out I think we would see a lot of sites that have gallery submitions on them banned by google or receiving fuck all SE traffic as many submit to hundreds of TGPs and can have over a hundred duplicated gallery pages. But I have not heard of this happening or seen any evidence.

I personally think some sort of penalization occurs so that the inbound links to the duplicated pages are worth less (or nothing) and only one of the duplicates appears in SERPs but I think that is about as far as it goes. But the freesites still appear in SERPs.

I have never heard of anyone ever getting some serious penalization for making freesites using either technique. The only thing I would worry about is future changes in SE algorithms.

Obviously using the method RawAlex talks of will bring more SE traffic for sure and its a good method. Personally though I think I could make more productive use of my time than changing several freesites. But thats just me ;)