I often wonder to myself why many go out of their way to create free directories. Are they created to build email databases and then send the submitter viagra and other popular spam? Are they made to get loads of links back to other websites they own? What other reasons are they created for? Therefore, I have created a Poll to see what many of you all think may be the real reason why they are created. .
In my opinion, the majority of free general directories are used for spamming purposes, or to gain the owners third site backlinks through the three-way reciprocal feature such scripts as phpLD use. Foolishly not believing 3-way linking is one step short of 4-way linking, which in turn it 1 link short of being 5-way linking, which in turn....is 1 link short of 99-way linking and a link farm.
There are some quality free directories out there. I know some free niche directories that get google traffic and that traffic makes its way to the listed web sites. Look at your analytics referral traffic stats over the space of a year and you'll see some quality free directories in the list. Of course you can also use the referral traffic stats to see if you're getting your money's worth with a reciprocal or paid directory.
- for fun - to build email db (but i never really send out email except regular accepted/approved/rejected submission) But both are not the main reason. Believe it or not, I use to build automatic content creation. Having thousands of links and thousands of keyword rich pages give my directories a good amount of traffic from search engine. Surprisingly, the popular keyword is a bit odd, like warcraft, proxy, armor, medicine, etc
of course its for the ad revenue money through adsense and others. they may be free to submit to but once they get enough traffic can bet the main ad spots are not free.
Some of these guys are very crafty , what they do is create huge numbers of clone bid directories , with the usual suspects paying to list ( gambling casinos etc) they then constantly link back to each other creating the impression of huge numbers of Y backlinks , they are to be avoided ... list some good ones here, or PM with ones you know are straight and work, huge amount of junk out there
I also agree with hotpop, Generally free directories can make money from adsense and add of other website. Most of directories are in starting permit you to submit your link absolutely free but after some days or months when site become popular it changes his submit option to payment required. You can also sell your free directories due to traffics and popularity, because traffics are the main way of money, no one can do any things without traffics. Thanks
Traffic for banner ad clicks/affiliate clicks - it works, I used to do it. Traffic for a high sale price. Huge email list to spam their web tools/directory submitter service.
free directories - specially non-reciprocal link dirs - are a community service above all. a service for successful sites to return some value to the global community. and free dirs also are used to improve SERPS for listed sites ( i have substantially improved SOME individual high traffic site serps by listing in a selected number of free directories in recent weeks ) in addition free dirs create additional traffic - possible with limited additional adsense revenue but also will result in increased alexa rank adding to advertising value for some NON-adsense ads-servers.
Should I perhaps start a thread why paid directories are simply PR peddlers? Or maybe we should start one about the many paid link farms where one person owns 100 or more paid directories? Why is there this continual class warfare crap going on? What's the matter, feeling a bit of a pinch because folks don't want to pay you for what they can get for free from me and others? Sure there are crap free directories. There are also a ton of crap paid directories. I've seen both free and paid directories that do not follow their own categorization and TOS or have free-for-all categories with hundreds of sites. And are you so naive to think that there are not paid directory owners selling their email lists too? The method of monetization or the directory owner's motivation for having the site does not ensure or preclude the directory from being a quality resource. If anything, paid directory owners with their seemingly larger budget should be able to provide greater PR, more content, and more non-submitting thru-traffic than any competing free directory. Yet, with few exceptions, this is simply not the case. Perhaps instead of wasting your time trying to attack the competition, you should spend more time working on building up your own site(s) to make them a more worthwhile investment for submitters.
The question asked is why are there so many free directories... We also have a few free directories that are doing exceptional well in the serps and we sure dont harvest anyones emails nor need adsence for revenue. We see no difference between a free or paid directory other then the editor behind it , but in the end to each his own PS... No pinches here as editors always get paid for thier work thx malcolm
Creating and editing a directory just to build an email marketing list is pretty inefficient - especially considering the number of submissions that use throwaway addresses for the contact field. I agree with YMC (as usual). I wish more directory owners focused on more important metrics for value - like relevance by association - leading to hub status for category pages: Directory Structure 101 - Max Number of Listings per category page Directory Structure 102 - Category Taxonomy Directory Structure 103 - Listing Sort Order