In many instances you are correct but carte blanche, no there are some good free directories but you have to sift through to find them
hmmm..... are u creating this post just to get some form of heated arguments going on? Anyway, i don't submit to all free directories (due to lack of time), only those i see that the owners are serious in developing it further and have potential. Those that look like crap are immediately closed.
Most of the highest ranked directories on the internet are free, in fact, in most forums the discussion is whether it is worthwile to use Paid Directories with Google considering Paid links to be less relevant. Do an Alexa Search. Where do you get your data?
Pretty funny post considering you have a signature that says free directories list and three other directories. Free directories play an important role in back links and there are some very good free directories out there. Are there some bad ones? Of course, but there are bad everything. I think you called this one!
Ahem .. I have some free directories and I don't think they're not quality. And I don't submit to paid directories since most of them are not worth it. I allow free submissions in my directories, no account, no reciprocal links. I want to make it as simple as possible to all people to add their links.
I would definetly not say that free directories don't have quality. If you have a free directory you can have extremely high quality cause you can approve and decline any site where a paid directory maybe don't want to decline every submission.. I'd say a free directory could have better quality than a paid one.
From your post, it seems like you translate "Free Directory" as "Poor Quality"... Well, I don't submit to all the free directories coming out everyday but I believe there are many directories that are free but still they are maintained properly. So I always keep looking and I DO submit to them. Its up to you to decide where to submit and where not to.
LinkLister and Zippy (in my sig) were free once, and announced here. Now those submissions are on pages with PR for the life of the directories. These days I don't submit to free directories because I don't have the time.
Heck, why not? The worse case scenario is that you'll get rejected. If not, it's an IBL. What could possibly be wrong with that? Nothing, nadda, zip.
as long as its in the rigth category , whats the problem? it might not be as useful as paid links , but its a free ibl.