Is submitting to free directories considered as a ethic way to get backlinks these days. I wonder whether google will penalize you for doing so? I have been doing it for long time and i fear of google penalizing me for submitting to unquality free directories. Just wanted to know about it.

Google will have absolutely no idea whether you submit or not.

If you get a link in some of the myriad of useless directories there are around it may help a miniscule bit, but I wouldn't bank on it.

A better idea is to find place that will send you useful traffic and get links threre.

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I don't think Google will penalize you for a lot of low-quality links from web directories. I think the more links you have, the better it will be for your website.

The page rank keeps changing so you cannot say for sure which directory will have what pagerank in future.

No, why would Google do that anyway? I've never heard of any case with such issue. If this worry you so much, just contact Google and confirm.

I dont think it would hurt your site.

Although a scenario when a free directory you previously submitted to has been considered as a linkfarm by Google might sting a bit

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Although directories dont send you much if any traffic to you they do help, in my opinion, to get spidered more often. Which helps you to rank better. They also add more backlinks.. not necessarily quality but quantity.

traffic rarely comes from them but they can be a good source of backlinks for it lasts longer

Im not really a fan of directory submissions. The link value is hardly anything and it takes a lot of time. I believe my time can be used better doing other things like blog comments and forum posts

you're right about that, but not all of free directories assure you that you're site will be listed...