Did Google Drop 100+ Small Directories?

Yesterday I covered a WebmasterWorld thread where SEOs were complaining that Google has been removing tons of free web directories from their index.

I conducted some random tests and did notice some of these free web directories not coming up in Google. Later in the day, Terry Van Horne began running larger tests on 500+ web directories and noticed as much as 16% or more are no longer showing up in Google. Based on his initial numbers, there are over a 100 web directories that are not indexed by Google.

I do not know if these directories were ever listed in Google or removed recently due to one of the recent Google updates; i.e. Penguin, Panda refresh, blog link network elimination and unnatural link warnings.

I did ask Google for a comment on this specific case and Google declined.

Have you noticed a recent massive delisting of web directories from Google’s index?

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land’s News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry’s personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here.
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