Just wanna which are the best paid directories. Which ones build good high PR backlinks? Which bring in a good amount of direct traffic? etc.
There are many out there, just visit this Directory Forum and look at the lists. Alive and Aviva and Directory Dump are pretty popular.
IMO, bigweblinks.com is best value for money. $50 for a permanent listing. Tons of backlinks and yet hardly any outgoing links (compared to other established directories).
Subjective question that can be answered by saying that there are many that offer great value and anyone picking one out must be EINSTEIN So the definitive answer is that there are many that offer value added benefits
Yes lost of directories out there that offer great value, it really depends on your budget. I have three PR5 directories all offer deep links and are priced below $10 for a permanent listing. 2ListNow.com Submit4Backlinks.com WRdir.com Keep an eye out for sales too.
bigweblinks, aviva, alive, directorydump.com, webdirectorybid.com (small price for a PR6 link ) There are many. Somes like forplex are great too.
Directories such as alive, bigweblinks, webdirectorylist, ewebpages.org, forplex.com, gii.in, dump, etc are ahead of the game. I would suggest make decision yourself. Here are some of the things you can check yourself. Check fro Backlinks (I recommend Yahoo site explorer), PS (Page strength), PR (Page Rank - check the ranking for inner pages), Index (Check if the site was fully indexed by search engines), traffic (get recommendations from already listed sites), etc. Those will give you an idea of how strong the directory is.
Here are some of my good resources on paid web directories.. Best Paid Directories Top 20 Paid Directories 10 Most Popular Web Directories