Web Directories

**Snooper** · 03-10-2008, 07:46 PM

How really are important web directories?!

For many of people web directories seem to be a master key for their own websites success. They submit to almost everything that even looks like web directory, thinking of... thank God for this easy way to catch good PR... as much directories I submit, better PR I have... higher PR directory, even better... etc...
So they submit hundreds of directories, but their PR was still zero. It doesn't move from the spot at all, even after months and months of hard submitting.

What's the problem?!

Honestly, it could be a lot of problems in relation between website and good PR, but we are talking about web directories now. What could be wrong?! You submit to so many of web directories, even a good one directories, with high (5, 6 or 7) PR, and nothing?!

The problem is in relation between web directory and Google. They are simply, worthless!!! So are the backlinks from them. You may have a millions of that kind backlinks and still have PR zero, even if they have really high Page Rank...

How could it be?

If you do a little research about web directories, you will find out soon why is it so. You will find tons of generally web directories, those kind of websites who are not explicitly web directories, and they have very mixed content. Just a little of SEO things, a little of web design, some free templates... little of this - little of that... which means, they are generally-content websites. Most of them are junk or spam, in best cases just another website with a lot of Adsense. Certainly, some of them are really good websites, with trusty and valuable content on their pages, so they earned 5, 6 or 7, some of them even 8 PR, but they are still generlly-content... and also, by the way web directories who offers bacllinks to you, mostly conditioned with reciprocal links. So... they are practically chasing after their own backlinks, which is in some cases hundreds of thousands of them, because people gladly submitting websites, expecting good valuable backlinks.
The pages that contains submitted links (pages with categories where have you done your submission) are not actually indexed by Google spider on purpose of hiding them, because they actually don't need them to be indexed. All they need are backlinks that you have provide by putting reciprocal links into your index page.

Watching from other view... whole game is about their backlinks, not yours!!!

This text was written by Snooper for www.snoopmoney.com

**Tone** · 03-10-2008, 08:07 PM

It is still a helpful part of link building/seo i think although maybe not as effective as a few years ago.

**manishkapoor1** · 03-11-2008, 11:43 AM

Well, i think it is not much useful to submit link to directories.The directory sites get very few traffic and they have very few pages indexed by search engines. I am not saying that they are not useful at all. I think submiting website to only high PR and quality directories is much better than submitting to low pr free directories. 5 incoming Links in PR 5-8 directory are much better then 50 0 pr directories.

Wish you all the luck...

**Bernard** · 03-11-2008, 11:56 AM

There is a lot of disconnect in that article IMO.

Not all directories are equal. Getting listings in a handful of the right ones can make a huge difference in SERPs and frequency of spider crawls. I can't say for PR - I don't care much about it.

I have had sites rank well based upon nothing but submissions to "junk" directories too, so they have value. You might just be focusing on the wrong metric (ie. PR).

**Snooper** · 06:57 PM

Guys I am telling you... Web directories are like any other web business, small or big one on the net. They charge you for sobmission ($20 - $300) so you pay immediately, or if it isn't the case, next thing would be, because they offers submission for free, thousands of people comes to their websites every day making really huge traffic... so they can earn seriouse money only from advertisers ads. Good enough reason to offer free service, isn't it?!

How does it looks like to Google?

There comes one guy offering something for nothing, and than comes another guy offering nothing for something... Something to nothing... Nothing to something... When you put all together it gives one big nothing. Nothing!!! So, nothing could be your PR, unless you don't change your strategy.
Thinking that way , my recommendation will be to avoid submitting to generally web directories, especially those you need to pay for. It's just throwing money away. Submit only to those directories which you're absolutely sure about value of their links. It's still a few of them, even if they are mostly worthless, it will always be some exceptions like DMOZ or Yahoo!. They will probably provide valuable backlinks to you, so Google will be happy about it... or maybe not, who knows?! I mean, there isn't any guaranties for success just because you are submitted to directories.

Just remember great Blue Find web directory couple years ago. It was respectable and trusted web directory with very high PR... I think it was 8 PR, really valuable link... and than was banned by Google because of manipulation and selling high Page Rank to directories. Now they are changed to Webdirectory7, about year ago, but without any use. Their PR is still zero... What use could be submitting to them now???

This text is written by Snooper for www.snoopmoney.com

**fastreplies** · 03-12-2008, 05:53 PM

Let me make something clear in here.

As far as SE concerned, Directories validate your sites. Without Directories your sites would be dead on arrival. All that link exchange building is nothing more than a noise Google is care less about.

Why am I saying that? Because, how else you can explain Google is sucking from us 6-8GB and Yahoo 10-12GB of bandwidth every month?

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 03-13-2008, 08:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fastreplies

Why am I saying that? Because, how else you can explain Google is sucking from us 6-8GB and Yahoo 10-12GB of bandwidth every month?

They hate you and want you to pay a high bandwidth fee.

This article could be summed up in about three or four sentences.

Submit to a directory if it's free, doesn't require a reciprocal link, will give you quality traffic and is a resource worth sharing with your friends. If any of these are not the case, then don't waste your time.

PageRank is useless and is a non-directory factor, contrary to published opinion.

**ForrestCroce** · 03-13-2008, 09:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

PageRank is useless and is a non-directory factor, contrary to published opinion.

Ahem. If it's published, it's true. You can verify because what I just wrote is published on the prestigious internet making it true.

**mandyatprime** · 03-13-2008, 10:08 PM

sometimes..directories are helpful. They tend to give traffic to sites. It depends to the directory if its relevant to your site or not

**liamizdabest** · 03-13-2008, 10:09 PM

Who even uses directories? Nobodys going to say... "Well Google doesn't have it. I bet this PR5 directory does." I NEVER use them except to submit sites. I get some good traffic that way. You should submit to DMOZ and high PR free ones. But honestly, don't use them to search. Just use Google. =)

**fastreplies** · 02:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by liamizdabest

Who even uses directories? Nobodys going to say... "Well Google doesn't have it. I bet this PR5 directory does." I NEVER use them except to submit sites. I get some good traffic that way. You should submit to DMOZ and high PR free ones. But honestly, don't use them to search. Just use Google. =)

Who even uses directories?

According to our Search Stats between 1,000 and 3,000 visitors per day

Are you asking why?

Because our directory give them 2 - 3 pages to choose from instead of going over dozens of spam infested, SEO stuffed garbage sites

submit to DMOZ You must be kidding me.

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 03-14-2008, 01:40 AM

Question though, fastreplies...how many of them are actual users vs. people just looking to dump a link off? (That'd be hard to measure, but it would be interesting.)

Quote:

Ahem. If it's published, it's true. You can verify because what I just wrote is published on the prestigious internet making it true.

Oh yeah, that's right...everything on the Internet is true, including this post, because the Internet says everything on the Internet is true, and if you refer back to the beginning of this sentence, everything on the Internet is true, so it must be true.

I humbly apologize.

**fastreplies** · 02:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAM Web Design

Question though, fastreplies...how many of them are actual users vs. people just looking to dump a link off? (That'd be hard to measure, but it would be interesting.)

We have between 300 and 600 submissions every day.
60% of them made by submission scripts.
So let say 200 searches made by people who want to make sure they are going to select correct category and/or size up their competition.

More appropriate question would be: how many of them click links and that again according to our stats about 70%

One directory owner we list, wrote us and told that he is getting on average 80 visitors per month from our site alone and his link is not even on page 1.

Hopefully it answered your question

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 03-14-2008, 03:03 AM

Alright, dude, I'll put that theory to the test. I just submitted my blog.

By the way, two things:

1) In IE7, the text fields are almost impossible to read when submitting a URL.

2) Same form: the field name you used for the CAPTCHA (letters) matches the field name my girlfriend uses when she plays Scrabulous on Fadbook and wants to "get help" from Scrabble Helper (this is usually before she asks me to play a word that inevitably jams the board up).

**LinkPopularity** · 03-14-2008, 05:29 AM

very strange how some people can make such a bold TOTALLY WRONG statements ... people submit to directories, because it works !

**arcel** · 03-14-2008, 09:49 AM

still useful for me... besides it's free

**fastreplies** · 01:07 PM

I wish some of you people stopped making fools of yourself.
Check Google for this: link:www.dubaiwebnetwork.com
And then Google for: dubai web network or for dubai web hosting

Site is 2 month old and added to our index 1 month ago and if that is not proof good enough for you, then start talking about weather in your area and stay away from subjects you have not a slightest idea about.

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 03-15-2008, 12:46 PM

Ummmm...okay. I'm not really sure what your point is there. Seriously, I don't get it.

**fastreplies** · 01:48 PM

dubaiwebnetwork.com was submitted to more than 100 directories and the only directory that came up in "link:" search is AMRAY

2 points that I made are
a. Submitting to directories work (at least to directories that Google recognizes)
b. You position in SE could be improved if good directory validate your site

fastreplies

**ADAM Web Design** · 03-16-2008, 02:41 AM

Actually, dude, that doesn't really prove much of anything.

1) The "link:" operator has long been known to be an invalid measure of anything as it only shows a fraction of links at best that big G knows about, and the rhyme or reason behind it is either non-existent or far more complex than any forum or group of SEOs would give it credit for (I tend to subscribe more to the latter logic.)

2) How would you know that dubaiwebnetwork.com was submitted to more than 100 directories, unless either you did some sort of SE query that revealed that information or you were working on the site yourselves?

3) I wouldn't suggest it hurts, but I look at it like this...if I don't see direct referrals from a directory, it's probably not helping me. And most don't send referrals, since most pages in directories aren't found, since most either aren't fully indexed (or at least indexed to a level that would include my page) or don't contain sufficient original content.