Being hilariously optimistic; All the fly-by-nighter directory owners that create 50 directories a day and have scripts to accept all submissions on a regular basis will realise that they're not helping anyone or themselves. They'll drop out of the link farm industry and focus on running, oh, lets say, mass-web hosting businesses. Having all the junk gone will mean the real directory owners will get some respect with Google and other search engines, and again directories will prosper. People will realise that PR is a pointless measure, and will stop trying to buy & sell it, instead focusing on more important things such as their position in the SERPS - and actual traffic. Ah, if only
I still see a lot of new webmasters trying their hands at directory business, I believe we will continue to see more junk coming in. I also see 2-3 new directory scripts popping up. @an0n: Aren't you planning to create a new script? Or you are happy making money fixing a broken script? ;-)
I don't think it would remain useful in the future.. Since you can easily Google what you want to know and where to find it, making use of directories might no longer be needed in the future.. As for SEO purposes, web directories would not have any future since even at present, not all get quality backlinks from directories..
I am a little optimistic about the future of directory business. However, who knows the future? Even Google could be beaten down.
There are too many spammers for the directories. Those spammers are killing the goose that lay the golden eggs. Except for the few extremely well maintained directories, the normal ones will go down the drain.
well well.....this business would be like any other one....only the competitive ones will stay and rest will leave after getting the hands burnt!!
Honestly, I may make a little something on the side. Nothing outrageous though. I spend more time helping to fix the broken script than make money off it. They are the ones who try to charge $30 to fix what should never be broke in the first place. That's is also the reason why they delete my posts over there, as well as read my Private messages, because I DO help and give out code to fix problems, and I don't charge money for it either. Did you know there are still things broken in the most up to date version that existed as far back as 2.0 release candidate 1. haha that's 3+ years dude. That's pathetic.
The future could depend on the release of a new script altogether... Personally I am optimistic and good directories could actually help improve the search industry in some years from now as more sites will be created.
future of directories lies in the hands of directory owners, kill those spammy directories, those 100's running on the same database and with a .info extension, ready to sell off with the slightest of the green bar... build strong directories [content, links, reviews...] and keep working at those, stop worrying about external factors that are out of your control and things will start to improve. come on, nothing has changed so far and nothing will change, you never came out of the girlfriends... err... pants and i never got a girlfriend...
Any site can be a success no matter what it relates to. It comes down to how you build it, promote it and maintain it. If you build crap then you will get crapped on in return. If you build based on quality and fulfill a need then quality and success will come back to you. Not a hard concept to grasp. Business 101. Most of the people coming here and saying how terrible it is that google did this or google did that make it so very convenient. They are not accepting blame for their own failings. They built crap and got crapped on. Is that googles fault? I don't think so. Google is just trying to clear their index of spam. IF all directories were affected then why not business.com, joeant, skaffe, botw and the list goes on. And guess what - a simple trip to searchenginecolossus will tell you that many of those top directories are out there buying links with page rank and still not getting any penalties. How can that be? Now that is something to think about.... I have a theory on that and if you read through this post you may figure it out. There are thousands of directories out there still doing just fine. There are a few nice ones caught up in the mess that should not have been but that will also get sorted out in time. The future of directories is just a bright as any directory owner wants to make it. Understanding though that the days of throwing up a crap site and thinking they are going to get rich are only in the rear view mirror. So for the future - quit thinking in terms of yesterday because yesterday is over. Look towards the future and start thinking long term. Quit feeling sorry for yourselves and build something of quality. Doing so actually takes an investment of time and resources. It even took twitter a few years to really take off. Oh and one last thought - you can't build quality with a script that they have to give away for free. There is some flaw in that logic.
Not only patience, you also need to work. If i'm going broke, i cant just sit there waiting for a miracle to happen, waiting for god to award me for my patience... That doesn't happen... You should start working more... Thats the same with directories...
Speaking of JoeAnt, its amazing how it got its pagerank back from 3 to 5...I am very fond of JoeAnt myself and I came across a thread on Aaron's SEOBook that talk about JoeAnt. From what they are saying is that Google might have increased JoeAnt's PR "manually"(...) Not many directories get that kinda treatment! I know some of their senior editors and they are very nice people. (a little off topic sorry! but could help comment on Swedal's mention of JoeAnt)
All these dead on arrival directories will go away when directories owners realize that they are wasting their time and they will never make a penny in return. Time will take care if Google won't do it before that. fastreplies