Interesting discussion Would like to offer you one example: DMOZ category for Search Dogs : http://www.dmoz.org/Health/Public_H...gency_Services/Search_and_Rescue/Search_Dogs/ and the subcategory for Search Dogs/ United States. http://www.dmoz.org/Health/Public_H.../Search_and_Rescue/Search_Dogs/United_States/ Wonder if any search machine can give more relevant results. Hope that good directories can offer more cats like this example.
I quite agree with what Pipes said, Search engines offer a lot of content that ïs restricted or banned in directories. I myself rarely use them (though i own one!!!), except when i'm looking for something very specific. and i personnally know of some people (with nothing to do whatsoever with SEO) that use directories, from time to time...
But don't you agree with me? What do you think should be changed in directories to make them more attractive to people?
because there are lots of directories and only 3 major search engines. also, no directory has any bigger datacenter with loads of indexed pages than search engines
Directories can be generally better than Search Engines... If you are in a city and if you can find all the sites (websites about the city) and places ,where to buy ,where to hang out in a directory then you will not be going for a search engine The problem is you need a lot of human resources to create a directory ...
You don't have to navigate at all if there's a search box on every page. People don't use directories because they're not aware of them, on the whole, and directory results aren't as complete as the search engines. But there are some sectors where the SERPs are so confusing that you need a directory to get anywhere. Local search, for instance, is often full of keyword-stuffed affiliate websites or auto-generated stub pages about locations with no real information.
There's nothing better than straight simple answers, I'm running out of green for you Jim. Directories in the future will play a more important role, but will never out-do the search engine for sure, I'm writing a blog on this at the moment so won't bore people here.
In the beginning, when it came to the web, directories were the game. You had Archie, Jughead and Veronica, priot to this which were the first search engines (these searched FTP and Gopher sites only). They didn't do a good job because they didn't spider the sites terribly well. When the web protocols came along, it was easier to search the content of sites looking for links and content. Unfortunately, this meant that it was easy to "game" the directories by essentially stuffing it with keywords. Then sites came along that were catalogues of "recommended" sites - you went there because you trusted the reviewer and didn't want to go out and search through all the garbage that was out there (back in those days it wasn't ad-spam, it was more "look at my cat"-type sites that you were trying to avoid). Directories grew out of that - a few "big kids" on the block got well-known - of those only a few still survive. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_directories ) But then search engines got clever and started to get more and more relevant. People realised that instead of having to navigate to a category in a directory they just type a few key words into the search engine box and they get pages of semi-decent hits. They figured it was easier to sift through those to find the ones they want rather than go to a directory to find the category. At the same time the demographic of the web surfer changed - the phenomenon of having home computers actually connected to the internet came about, so it wasn't just geeks using the internet. Things HAD to get simpler to use. And then the next step - the search engines did what people had done before - they started using the web directories to find "good" sites, and the people running the web directories once again became the targets of those trying to find ways to place themselves better in the eyes of the surfer. I think that's where we are at now. There are some exceptions - niche directories that people know about, but in general, the average surfer doesn't know or care about directories. Personally, if the directory is done well, I think that it can give far better results than a search engine. If I am visiting a city and want to see what's there, then I will use a directory to browse through things - a search engine is hopeless at that. I also feel that the lack of interest of the general public into directories is causing less effort to be put into keeping them relevant as a tool, so it's a downward spiral. Look around at the directories that are discussed on this forum - how many of them really exist to provide a true service to the end-user? and how many of them exist to help "feed" the search engines? Someone needs to come up with the "killer app" directory that people will WANT to use, because it's easy to find stuff and gives better results than the search engines can. Oh, and they need to do it and make it well-known before Google does it. Good luck with that.
As a regular submitter to directories, I am a directory fan. But I must freely admit that I am submitting for the dual benefit of (1) minor traffic from the better directories, and (2) the positive link-building effects. That said, it would be a rare day when I would do a directory search rather than a focused, keyword-targeted Google search. I choose the latter for searching 100% of the time.
No. I don't visit directories other than for submitting. As stated above, I am a regular directory submitter, but a "never" directory searcher.
Why don't people use dir more than se? Considering that most directories are created by a small group or one person, is a probably one of the biggest reasons. Why trust a small group or person when you can trust the general consensus (currently known as Google). I mean come on, obviously Google's algorithim has it's flaws, but you can't tell me that 99.9 percent of the time you can't usually find what you are looking for on the first page results ( at the very most you might go to maybe three pages before finding a quality site related to your search). Google/major search engines are more in depth than most directories, so if I decide to search for something else ( no matter how random the search), I'm pretty sure Google has an answer where as Bob's directory might not. Isn't convenience what the internet is all about? Why flip flop to many places when you can just sift through one place? Also, even though people hate Adwords, some people might trust the sites advertising on top of the Google SE as high quality (giving them the impression that the site is serious enought to spend big money advertising). Yes I know people hate clicking on ads, but the reason why people hate adsense on small websites is because they are already found what they are looking for (hence why they are on that particular site)...whereas people on the SE are more likely to click on the ads cause they are still searching. Another reason why people don't use directories is probably because the internet is saturated with low quality ones. This gives a bad stigma from the general public about directories. Have a nice day, -Digip