Love 'Em or Hate 'Em by David Wallace
Jul 14, 2005



Web directories have been with us since the early 90's when the Internet really began to take off with the birth of the World Wide Web (the graphical portion of the Internet). Yahoo! was one of the original directories and although they have now evolved into a full blown search engine, they still have their directory in place. In the last year we have seen what seems to be an invasion of new directories popping up all over the place. This leads one to question whether directories are still useful. Do people still use them to search? Can they provide any marketing benefit to your web site? These are some of the questions we will explore in this article.

Web Directory vs. Search Engine

First, a quick refresher on the difference between directories and search engines. Directories differ from standard search engines in that a search engine will query a database of indexed websites before it produces results, and a directory is a database of websites that has been arranged by subject or category. Most directories have search functionality but the websites are still listed in specific categories.
As far as inclusion of your web site, typically a search engine will find your site on its own, whereas with a directory you have to submit your site for inclusion. Sometimes the process of getting into a search engine's index results from their crawler finding your site listed in a directory.

Do People Search By Directories Anymore?

Should we worry about making sure our sites are listed in directories? Do people still use directories or go straight to a search engine such as Google to find what they are looking for? To answer this question, I went to my server logs, which track all activity on my sites. As I expected, the majority of traffic coming to my web sites was from search engines, but to my surprise I did see some directory referrals as well. They were not in great numbers, but all the same they were still there.

Therefore I would say directory inclusion, at least in the free directories, is important because they may send you some traffic. It may not be in great quantities but with the ever-increasing competition on the web, I'll take traffic from wherever I can get it. Besides, if it is free, why not take a few moments to submit your site?

The Disappearance of Free Directories

Free directories are becoming scarcer all the time. Most are now requiring some kind of fee for inclusion; whether that is a one-time fee or some kind of recurring fee. We have to ask ourselves then if it is worthwhile to pay these fees or should we just forget about paid directories altogether?

For the little bit of traffic they may bring you I would say no. However, there are additional benefits a good directory can provide. The first benefit would be to brand new sites that are trying to gain inclusion into the indices of the top search engines and the second is that they will contribute to your site's overall link popularity score.

Directories Help New Sites

It is often asked if one should submit their site to Google, Yahoo! and MSN, all of which have pages where you can submit your URL. However this is not the most effective way to get a brand new site into these top engines. In fact, I personally believe that the only reason these three engines have an "Add URL" page at all is simply so they will not get bombarded with email requests for inclusion. Ask Jeeves doesn't even have an "Add URL" page. Neither does the smaller search engine WiseNut.

What is one of the most effective ways then to get listed in the top search engines? Get listed in one of the top directories. All the major engines I mentioned beforehand crawl directories and when they crawl them, then find new web sites to add to their index. This is their preferred way of finding new sites.

So if you have a brand new web site, submit it to some of the top directories, both free and paid and you will find that your site will soon afterwards be included in the top search engines as well.

Directories Help Build Link Popularity

What is this "link popularity" anyway, and why do you need it? Link popularity is a score that is accessed to a web site based on how many external and internal links are pointing or linking to any particular page. External links would include those that come from any other web site other than your own whereas internal links would be those that come from within the same domain name. Link popularity is also based not only on the "quantity" of links but the "quality" of those links as well. Therefore to have a good link popularity score, it is not necessarily required to have a large number of links pointing to your site but rather a good number of quality links.

This is where directories can help. Many of the top directories that I will mention shortly have good link popularity that can be passed on to your site. They also have specific category pages that are related to the nature of your site. In a day and age where link popularity is becoming more important in order to be found in a search engine, directories are a fairly inexpensive way to increase your own link popularity.

"Can't I just ask other web site owners to link to my site or exchange links with me?" Sure you can but this can be a very tedious and cumbersome task. First there is the time-consuming task of finding other quality and relevant sites to seek links from. Then there is the reality that most link requests go unanswered. I get tons every month that are simply deleted. "But if I build a great site, won't others naturally link to it?" Maybe they will but how does one get to the point where they have a great site and to where it is "out there" so people can find it? A lot of hard work!

Therefore I firmly believe that directories can be foundational for building link popularity and a very important reason why a web site owner should make sure they are included in them. It is a step in your marketing that you can easily control. It is a task that can be completed quickly and then you can move on to other things.

Free Directories

There are not many free directories left. Some of the ones I am listing below require that you become a volunteer editor in order to submit sites for free. Otherwise they charge a fee. Here they are:

AbiLogic - Free directory that usually includes sites within one month. They also have paid options, which can speed up the process.

Gimpsy - Free directory that only includes sites that are some how interactive. In other words, the site has to allow a person to do something like watch a video, take a survey, shop for a product, etc. They also have a paid option that speeds up the process of inclusion.

Index Unlimited - Free directory but requires a reciprocal link. Otherwise requires one time fee of $29.00.

JoeAnt - Free if you are a volunteer editor. Otherwise the cost is $39.99 to submit a site for inclusion.

NetInsert - Free directory in which you insert a meta tag on your home page, NetInsert then recognizes that tag and automatically places you in the category associated with it. A very neat concept but I imagine over time the directory will become filled with spam.

Open Directory - The last true free directory. You cannot pay to be included. Downside to this is that it can take a long, long time to get included. It all depends on who the volunteer editor is of the category you submit to. Some editors are very active but most are not. My advice is to submit to Open Directory and then forget about it.

Skaffe - Free if you are a volunteer editor. Otherwise the cost is $39.99 to submit a site for inclusion.

SiteRanking.com - Free directory but requires a reciprocal link.

Web-Beacon - Free if you are a volunteer editor. Otherwise the cost is $39.99 to submit a site for inclusion.

Web World - Free directory that can take up to 6 months before your site is included. They also offer a paid option to speed up the process.

WoW - Free directory that also has paid options. WoW is one of the best directories for free inclusion because they are very quick to review and include your site. You just better make sure you submit according to their specific rules or it will be deleted.

Paid Directories

There are many, many directories that you can pay for inclusion but I am only going to list what I feel are the current top twelve. These directories have good PageRank on their main index pages and on many inner category pages. They also have a wide range of categories so that it is easy to find one that is relevant to your business. Here they are.

Arielis Web Directory - $25.00 one time fee.
Best of the Web - $39.95 annually recurring fee. Great PageRank on interior pages.
BlueFind - $49.95 one time fee.
Business.com - $199 annually recurring fee. The top B2B directory on the Internet.
GoGuides.org - Requires paid membership which then dictates how many sites you can submit. $39.95/mo. allows you to submit up to 20 web sites a month; $29.95/mo. allows you to submit up to 10 web sites a month; $19.95/mo. allows you to submit up to 5 web site a month.
Microsoft bCentral SBD - $49.00 annually recurring fee.
SevenSeek - $40.00 one time fee. Great PageRank on interior pages.
Site-Sift - $24.95 one time fee.
SunSteam - $45.00 one time fee.
Uncover the Net - $39.00 one time fee. Great PageRank on interior pages.
WebAtlas - $37.00 one time fee.
Yahoo - $299.00 annually recurring fee.
In summary, directories are still a very viable aspect to successful online marketing. Take advantage of them and you will soon realize their benefits. If you would like to learn more about how to submit to directories, I would invite you to read Proper Directory Submissions, a two-part series I authored a while back on the process of submitting to directories.

Proper Directory Submissions - Part II

Strategies for submitting to directories by David Wallace
Oct 07, 2003

Editor's note: Click here to read Part I of this article.
Now for some specific requirements and techniques for each directory listed above.
Yahoo!
www.yahoo.com
Yahoo! charges $299 on an annual basis to be listed in their directory. You can still submit to some non-profit categories for free but there is not much chance that a Yahoo! editor will ever get to your submission and review it. Therefore even if the category you want to be listed in has a free submit option, it is recommended that you pay the $299 and you will be listed in 7-10 business days.
Make sure that when you submit that you are not already listed, that no portion of your site is under construction or broken and that your site is browser and user friendly. If it does not meet any of these requirements, Yahoo! may reject it while keeping your $299 submission fee.

Looksmart

www.looksmart.com
Looksmart is a pay per click directory meaning that you have to create an account with a budget to submit your listing and then you will be charged a "per click" charge every time someone clicks on your listing. They charge you a set up fee of $29 for each listing and per click fees start at $0.15. The benefit of being listed in Looksmart is that MSN displays Looksmart Listings in their search results.

If your site is non-profit, you may be able to submit for free to Looksmart owned Zeal (www.zeal.com) whose listings also show up in Looksmart.


The Open Directory

www.dmoz.org
The Open Directory Project (ODP) is comprised of volunteer editors all over the world who are responsible for one or more categories of the directory. Therefore once you submit to a specific category, it is the responsibility of the editor assigned to that category to review and approve or decline your listing. Some editors are more diligent than others so it is hard to determine when your site will get listed if it gets listed at all. It seems as of late that it has become more difficult to get listed in ODP. There is a website where you can check the status of your submission. It can be found at http://resource-zone.com/ and you would want to submit to the "Site Submission Status" topic. Top level editors are pretty quick to respond to your post.

GoGuides.org

www.goguides.org
GoGuides was started from former editors of the Go.com GoGuides that was killed after Disney decided to drop out of the portal race. Like ODP, it is comprised of volunteer editors that are responsible for specific categories in the directory. There are two ways to submit to this directory. One is to pay a one-time fee of $39.99 where your site is guaranteed to be listed in two business days or become an editor yourself. You have to take and pass a test proving you have some experience submitting sites to a directory before you are approved as an editor. Once you are an editor, you can add sites to the category for which you applied to; they are added instantly to the directory. If you want to submit a site to a category in which you do not have editing privileges, you can add to your own category and then move it to another category where you will then have to wait for that editor to approve your submission. As your editor level increases, you can apply to edit more categories.

JoeAnt

www.joeant.com
JoeAnt was also started by former Go.com GoGuides editors and is comprised of volunteer editors that are responsible for specific categories in the directory. Like GoGuides.org, there are two ways to submit to this directory. One is to pay a one time fee of $39.99, the other is to become an editor. There is no test to take to become an editor. You simply apply, choose the category you want to edit and then are approved via email response. You can then add sites to your assigned category. If you want to submit a site to a category in which you do not have editing privileges, JoeAnt has a forum that you can post to, asking other editors to list the site. As your editor level increases, you can apply to edit more categories.

Hotrate

www.hotrate.com
In order to submit to Hotrate, you have to apply to be an editor as well. Once you become an editor you can submit to most levels of the directory. As your level as editor increases, you can then submit to more areas of the directory.

Wherewithal/Xoron

www.xoron.com
There are two ways to submit to this directory - one is the standard way of finding the correct category, submitting and waiting for approval, and the other is to become an editor yourself. Once you are an editor, you can "grab" any category that does not already have an editor. Once you have this category, you can instantly add sites to it.

Zeal

www.zeal.com
Zeal is owned by Looksmart and is comprised of volunteer editors as well as Looksmart's employee editorial staff. Submission to Zeal is free but you can only submit if you are a non-profit business or website. All commercial categories would require submission through Looksmart's CPC listing service described above.
By following proper etiquette in directory submission, you will not only insure that your submissions are accepted but that they are listed in a way that will give the site its best chance at exposure and visibility.