[coreyvf]

Hey guys,
I just wanted to give an important piece of advice. If you don't read any tips or advice on this forum when setting up a Pligg site, at least take this one piece of advice with you when starting up a new Pligg site.

Do NOT submit your site to directories or "Pligg site" directories.

Why? Let me explain.

When you create a new website or Pligg website, you want to get the site out there and have people see it. The easiest way is to submit to these directories out there that index tons and tons of sites including some recent Pligg directories out there that index only new Pligg sites.

Now, this seems like a good idea because you may get a little traffic and you get a link to your site which may help with your Google rank. All this and it only took you maybe 2 minutes to submit your site and it was free.

But, let me tell you, the risk and potential damage you can cause to your site is horrific.

Pligg directories are like gold mines for Pligg hackers and Pligg spam bots. You see, what these hackers or bots do is automatically go through these directories and add your link to their list of sites to spam or even hack. If you're wondering why you're getting registrations with users using weirdly random screennames and spamming your directory it's because they are bots. And there's a 90% chance that they found your site from crawling the directory you submitted to.

It's also possible a lot of these directories are created by spammers or hackers themselves in order to collect new and potentially vulnerable Pligg sites.

I assume a lot of people who submit to these kind of sites are "Pligg noobs" and haven't fully secured or protected their site from these kinds of spammers or hackers.

So just realize that you're better off not submitting your site to directories at all. And this goes for any kind of directory for any kind of site. Whether it be a forum directory for your forum or a Joomla directory for your Joomla site, don't do it. These directories usually provide 0 traffic anyway since nobody even visits them or clicks links and they probably will not help your Google rank since most use "No Follow" links or are considered "link farms" by Google.

If you want to get your site some traffic or help your Google rank, exchange links with other Pligg sites or better improve your site's index on Google by making your Pligg site more SEO friendly.

[Jessemn]

Yikes. This seems a little harsh.

First off, you cant honestly expect to have a pligg site and not attract any spam. All you have to do is browse the new/upcoming categories of reddit/digg to really see this. A quick check and you will see the type of crap and spam that they have submitted to them every hour, every minute of every day. It takes time to run a pligg site, to keep the site clean. No amount of "anti-spam" modules will ever run a website.

Now I am not saying that these types of directories do not bring added spam. They do. However, I think the pros heavily outweigh the cons when it comes to these "pligg" directories (and its not as if there are really that many of them). While they may bring some malicious users, they also bring curious users. They bring those who are actually interested in pligg and its community. I, myself, have gone through them in the past simply to see whats new out there.

Many of the generic directories out there offer no benefits, its true. You probably wont see an extra 20 visitors a day from that submission to hotlinks123.com, but over the last few months I have seen a few hundred from pliggsites.com. In fact, if you search "solinkable" through google, they are actually the fifth result (and every external link helps).

You know what they say, any publicity is good publicity...

[chuckroast]

coreyvf,

You are assuming that everyone uses pligg for link submissions. Many people use Pligg for different reasons and configure it differently. Telling people to not submit sites to directories is like saying "don't submit your site to search engines"

[catchpen]

Yep spammers will find your Pligg site sooner or later. If they know how to use Google they'll find your site which is what they want more anyways is an older site that is well indexed by Google. Assholes.

[coreyvf]

Guys,

These directories, whether they be for Pligg sites or sites that use vBulletin are being crawled by hundreds of bots.

I'm not going to name any sites, but search Pligg directory in Google and check the sites. Then click some of the sites in those directories and check if they have spam or not.

Better yet, make 2 Pligg sites, almost identical. Submit 1 to every Pligg directory out there and the other only submit to search engines. I guarantee the site you submitted to Pligg directories receives spam, or your contact form is spammed, or you receive spammy registrations.

The pros do not outweigh the cons. There are far more professional and Google friendly ways to promote your site. Having your site listed in what Google considers "link farms" does not help your site get indexed higher.

If you want to expose your site to curious users who are interested in Pligg and it's community, post your site here at Pligg.com or put a link in your signature. It's far safer and more people will click it.

This is how email harvesting bots, or spam bots work. They use directories to collect information.

Think about it. Directories do not help that much, if at all. Exposing yourself to potentially hundreds of spammers can severely hurt your site.

Yes, there are reputable directories out there that help your site and aren't link farms, but most aren't. Just a tip.

[maxerg]

Don't put your site up on the internet if you are that much worried about being hacked.

[Webmastercoders]

Ouch!. Wow. Well..
It doesn't matter what you do, you'll always have some level of spam. It could be a website guestbook, Directory, Pligg or a site like google with millions to waste away on "trying" to combat spam.. You just have to take measures to reduce the amount of spam.. Email verifications, captcha, some file renaming, etc. As for the hacking part, using branded software makes it easy to find ie. searching "powered by..." Then exploiting holes in the script if any, but you just have to Backup your site and databases, religiously. As you should so if something slips by a developer you can apply the fix and restore your site..

I've always had good luck with directories for startups, there is a catch, don't blast every free site you can submit to. Find a directory that has a niche related to your site, this one submission is easily worth 20 junk submissions..Watch the pagerank, there are great free PR4,5,6+ directories out there... But don't cheat yourself either, New Directories come an go, but by placing a link on some you will be on the top of the list in that category when/if the directory becomes popular.

My 2 cents as a directory owner and a new pligg directory owner..

[royaltramp]

Thanks for the info coreyvf.

I get what you mean.

Another thing you should know is that you should not get your site get noticed in SEO blogs as some of these black hat SEOs might spam your pligg sites.

My pligg site was under construction and been spammed heavily. I don't mind if these spammers put the links in the appropriate categories but these spammers are just simply idiots.