My friends, recently Social Network site has become very popular (del.icio.us, stumbleupon.com, digg.com, reddit.com, myfeedz.com and others). These sites are extremely popular and frequently-visited. Besides their main goal, these sites allow submitting web-sites to Your personal pages for review and discussion (comments and references). Through high level of frequency of the submitted sites, Social Network sites serve as a successful promotion tool in the Internet. It has become a new SEO branch that specializes in promoting sites in this way. Along with general and niche web-directories, many of the list of directories contain Social Network sites as a direct alternative to directories. Aren't You affraid that directories may loose their urgency in future? We will have about 10 of the most popular directories, like DMOZ. This tendency is being confirmed by Google's growing aversion to directories. P.S. I am not sure if it's true, but I've included Social Network sites to my directory www.GreatDirectories.org I think that if these sites allow submitting other sites and have them classified into categories - this will be exactly what is necessary for people to submit their sites.
Well what can one say, the opening was compiled well,was it as a smoke screen? As it appears the purpose of the OP was to promote a site in the 2nd paragraph If so, then is the OP opened and entered in the wrong category?
can You explain Your issue in other words? If I understand You correctly, You are not right. This thread isn't for promoting a site. For this purpose I was using another thread: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=790323 And this thread had a success in a forum.
just checked out your site... While i agree all those directories are indeed good some dont accept submissions like Vlib.org which was the first directory on the internet, and the google directory is a clon of dmoz, so why list them? just curious is all thx malcolm
MG, in my last post I didn't try to underestimate value of the work You've done. You've collected a good selection and it will be of grate use for its users. If we analyse the sites where You can submit Your sites, Social Network sites have right to be in a list together with directories. But one should remember they are not directories. And I don't think web-directories will loose their urgency. Possibly, paid directories will disappear, but good free ones will exist for a long time.
For now, I'll ignore the seemingly spammy nature of your post and act as if you truly intended to start a conversation on this topic. The first problem I see is the very nature of the social sites. They tend to develop an 'in crowd' of users who can effectively decide what is good and what is bad. Many of the members seem to be in some sort of race to see who can post the latest news story first. I would not go to a directory or a social site for news - so all those listings on the sites you mention are of no use to me. Between the so-called news stories, the mis-filed topics and the ease that things can be manipulated; I would still use a directory before I would use a social site to find something I was looking for. All of that does not mean that I do not use the social sites. After having two articles make it to the front page of Digg, I know the short and long-term benefits of gaining that position. The social sites are a great way to get backlinks to interior pages but once the posting has fallen off the new, recently hot, or first few pages of a category it fairly well ceases to get any measurable traffic. Whereas directory listings are mainly to the homepage, the links do not shift from page to page and the SEO benefits do not typically degrade with time like they do on the social sites. A well-run directory will ensure that if I look at the Arts category that I will only find sites related to the Arts. On at least one of the social networking sites I use to promote my blog, the Arts category is the default category selection and many non-Arts articles are included simply because people either don't know how or are too lazy to select a different category. If I am looking for information about Art, I most certainly do not want to read about some great credit card offer or get rich quick scheme. The two types of sites are so very different that I don't see them as true competition for each other. Overall, I use the social sites for deep links and perhaps a few/many short-term hits and directory links for long-term SEO purposes along with a few hits here and there. The one exception in the group of sites you list is StumbleUpon. I can't say I've ever used it for research but it is great fun to explore the net through that site and find other sites in my niches or that cover my interests. And while I don't believe it would ever be able to replace directories, it does have it's own unique place on the net.
Thanks YMC. The answer is interesting and irrefragable. I would add that a popular directory with thorough moderation has more advantages in comparison with Social Network sites. Not all users will want read other users' testimonials or trust appraisal plan of the submitted sites, peculiar to a given Social Network site.