Okay, I want to invest my money on some paid directories. My question is does it matter that the category I submit have a strong PR. I noticed on most directories, the home page receives the strongest PR until, you start going into the categories. Than the PR starts to drop. Should I ignore the ones that don't even give a PR in the categories???
You can pick the most releveant sub-category linked from the homepage. If there's none, homepage PR won't really do much good for you. Also make a deep search before you start spending - prices differ a lot, consider Page Stregth as well as PR so you wont be fooled by dropped PR domain directories.
Most sites are like this, including directories...index has highest PR, then drops as you get deeper into the categories. I would submit it anyways if you feel that the directory is strong. The page may not have PR now, but it has a good chance that it'll go up on the next PR update. I normally don't care about the PR of a specific page. I care more about the strength of the entire website or directory. Take for example, Yahoo directory, it has many pages without PR, but it still provides a strong backlink.
If the inner's have PR,I would submit.But if a directory has pr on main page but no PR on inner's,it probably is built on an expired domain.I would not submit to it.
I wanted to submit to this site: www.stpt.com which has a strong index PR 7 but for the health/exercise/weight_training/ there is No PR. Is $99 bucks worth it still?
Those pages will gain PR by the next update. Those pages are probably just new and don't have a PR yet. Trust me...I was in the same boat as you, but I still submitted mine under a page with 0 PR. After the Google update, that page went up to a PR6! Are there any listings within those pages or just blank categories?
I just see one listing in that category. That site supposely is an Authority site or a site that google trusts.
http://www.stpt.com/directory/health/exercise/weight_training/ i see this PR5 and with only 1 listing, it'll be a strong backlink and i'd say worth it.
There you go...I bet you that page is already cached by Google. Google crawls STPT like crazy, so pages are cached very quickly. STPT is truly one of my favorite directories. I think it is a little pricy compared to other directories, but it's definitely a strong and well-respected directory.
Check out this page: http://www.stpt.com/directory/finance/credit_cards/ I was the first one to get listed there, but it was PR0 at that time... Now, its PR6 and now everyone's jumping on the banwagon.
What you also need to remember is as a directory grows new categories are added - obviously these new categories have to wait the 3ish months for the Google update in order to achieve their ranking. As mentioned i think its a good idea to go for a site that lower level PRs although i don't personally think that having your link on a PR page is essential (although it does help). Ultimately you're still getting a link back and if the site has some good PR pages then the likelyhood is that the directory is very well indexed - hence your link is likely to be caught very quickly. PR will then obviously come with time!
I think you have to first decide your priority--what do you want! SERPs improvement or PR. If you want SERPs improvement --I would advice you to list your site in directories that has more cached pages and backlinks no matter what PR page you are listed. But if you want PR for your site --yes --you need to consider which PR page you are getting listed.
Relivance is the best way in my opinion, then again I suppose it depends what you are trying to do. If you want pr then submit to the highest PR directory with the lowest amount of links. if your submitting for seo reasons then submit to the most relivant place. For example I made a quick PS3 forum when I was a bit bored and didn't do any seo etc etc to it. A few days later I wrote an article about the forum on one of my established sites saying the forum was open la la la etc etc and linked to it. The site only has 3 links to it but are all relivant so is ranking pretty well and bringing in around 100 to 150 uniques a day for the keywords ps3 forum/ps3 forums. Ok none are signing up because it looks rubbish and I haven't bothered spending any time on it but it does prove to me that 3 0PR links that are relivant are worth a fair bit. I've been drinking but I think this makes sense lol
Well it doesn't have to be like that http://ask-dir.com/ PR4 http://ask-dir.com/Business/ PR4 http://ask-dir.com/Business/Insurance/ PR4 http://ask-dir.com/Business/Insurance/Vehicles/ PR4
Can't I have the best of both world's? I want SERP's and a Higher PR. What directories would be an example of more cached pages and backlinks?
Since the index page is of high PR, I'm sure there's a certain amount of visitors, et cetras to make it of such high PR. Give it a try, if it's not good, take it a lesson learnt and look for better directories in the future.