That's a tricky question. It's not that I'm lazy (ok, maybe a bit), but this "submit your website to all tiny directories" thing doesn't look appealing to me. At all. It gives me the impression of uselessness. Ok, maybe I'm wrong, but why is that?! PS I've thought of doing my directory as well, but who's gonna notice it in the ocean of zillion of other tiny directories?!
In my opinion a directory link is more for pagerank and backlinks than actual traffic via that directory.
In the long run every link counts. I would just never use a service that submits to thousands of directories at the same time. Christoph
Manual submissions are best of course, but consider if you submitted to 500 directories and you received a unique visitor per day from just 1 out of every 5 of these sites. That is 100 uniques per day. Now if you have a site that is useful to these visitors they may tell others about it and so on and so on. It becomes viral. So yes you may not get a visitor per day from each one, but it can help in a huge way in the long run.
Hm.. Now you guys seem to be pretty convinced. Yet I'm not sure how much would listing in all tiny directories help. I'd say good content is the key. Updated often as well. You then need only to tell a handful of people about it and they'll spread the word if they like it. And then you get much better, natural backlinks. What do you think about this? It's not fantasy, it worked pretty well as a concept during some experiments I took. I'm still early in the biz though
i paid for someone to submit my site to 200 directories, it happened just before the PR update, so i haven't received the benefits yet....but it should have some effect next update.
Does anyone not consider the fact that having links in so many "small" directories may have you penalised by Google?
Nope, because its not the case Its apples and oranges...Luckily you don't have to choose between the methods you listed, you can utilize all of them
On an average 1 month is required for google to pick up your links. So, dont worry you will be given credit for that work. Have patience
It does not mean you should not have good content, but every visitor you get is going to help you grow. Why would you not want to get an extra 100 visitors per day that could help you grow. I receive around 150 per day from directories. I will take any extra exposure I get. I continue to add content to my site and grow. So it is a matter of choice.
Although the odds aren't that good, every once in a while a real gem of a directory is created. I like to think of my submissions to all of these new directories as a shotgun approach, and eventually I'll get a good hit. Sometimes the directory disappears, others stay small and insignificant, but then, say, one in a hundred (or probably more), a directory will grow and thrive. Eventually, that directory will require paid submissions and people will gladly pay it. I can think of several examples of this happening. You never really know when it's going to happen, but it feels good to have a link in a nice, high traffic, high PR site, and it feels better to know you were in on the ground floor-for free.