Very good choices. I am listed in most of them, and most are consistently showing PR4 on the sub-category pages. And yes, they are showing up in Google's list of links at Google Webmaster tools.
Google is surely giving importance to directories. I've done SEO of many customers and increased there back link from directory submission and article submission. But I also do agree that its giving less importance in terms of PageRank. If you directory has links on home page it will reduce your PR by 1 for sure. I saw it incase of one of my customer - he has around 20 directories, we've backlink for all directories for a PR7 site (paid one), All directories that had links on home page became PR4 and other became PR5. I'm not saying it like a truth but surely has given me some thing to think on.
it would surprise me that google would limit the importance of directories, this because they are human reviewed, google loves that !
Hello... I would disagree as well.... Ive been getting much work lately from a few sources and they are submitting sites like Castrol Oil T-Mobile phones, British airways and such and dont think that they would be submitting or still in business if that was the case.. thx malcolm
Matt wrote a post about the human touch in google. And part of that human touch are directories. They have an important role to play in google's algorithm. And I expect google's algorithm to trust directories with quality editorial policies. I believe their algorithm is capable of guessing which directories review websites and which just accept any website that is submitted. And that will differentiate trusted directories from other directories. Roy
nice data rob. seems googles loves you. notice the extra crawls in april for the PR update. I expect mr G to visit me and others more soon, for the next update.
I hope not I just payed 50.00 to be in a pr7 directory in the shopping section which is relvant to my website.
google has given me the faster crawl option for my directory, and has already cached most of my pages google is crawling and indexing properly, so i don't have much complains either!!