The biggest question: what is a web directory's role: 1 - to do it's part in the SEO field, 2 - to bring visitors to the submitted sites by clicking on the links or 3 - both In my opinion - based on my humble SEO experience - most of the web directories has only a SEO role and their function as "starting point" for a usual net navigator is almost insignificant. What is your opinion?
if dmoz would be faster and have enough editors, maybe the number of other directories won't be so big
When i first started submitting to directories i concerned myself with the whole DMOZ obsession, now i couldn't give two hoots about it, when there are literally thousands of directories to submit to and tens of thousands of relevant sites to exchange links with DMOZ then in my own eyes becomes less important.
There are too many directories for the available traffic, that is people searching for and through them. So the main role for most is to provide a backlink. In this sense SEO unfriendly directories have little reason to exist, unless they generate plenty of traffic. My SEO Directory was set up having that in mind. That's why it includes SEO related websites but ALSO SEO friendly directories that are capable of giving some SEO benefit, with a good backlink that can be freely followed by search engine robots and leaks PR. That's how I see it.
If I understand your question I mean directories that have links that are not beneficial for SEO purposes because search engines can't follow them. It could be for a number of reasons such as links as redirects, links that include a 'no follow' tag, robots.txt that instruct spiders not to follow them and any other way to prevent spiders from following through to the linked website listed in the directory (therefore SEO unfriendly) Did that answer your question at all?
I'd say the holy grail is to get both SEO benefits and traffic. The question is... how to get traffic into the directory so that it can be sent back out to those listed in it.
Of course it is, I totally agree with you that ideally you should have both backlinks AND traffic. The problem is that there are far too many directories out there that share the same amount of traffic that doesn't increase because of the increase in directories. Only the growth of internet traffic in general gives hope, but search engines are eating more and more into directory searches. Easy to install/free/easy to manage scripts have made it easy for everybody to own a directory. It's almost as easy as having a blog. And you know how many blogs there are out there too. You see, if it's easy, a lot are going to do it, just to try and see if they can make the dream of easy money, whether a lot or just a little, as long as it easy. In the worst case they'll prob break even with some link sales, back links to their own sites, advertising, a few paid submissions, etc. It's so easy, particularly when you have set up one already, that many have more than one. So this is the situation: a few very big ones that get most of the traffic mostly because everyone knows about them, such as Yahoo and DMOZ. a few other good ones that are known only to a smaller community and that you can find among members of DP too, I'll mention dirmoz and alivedirectory, and many many others (please forgive me if I didn't mention yours, just the first couple I thought of). Then there are so many others that hopeful webmasters set up and many of which become almost inactive or dead in a few months due to lack of traffic. I hope that my seo directory doesn't die because I'd like to see it slowly develop into something decent. But if you want to know you'll find out in my seo directory blog Nevertheless getting submissions isn't that hard. Now why is that? Basically because finding a directory submitting is easy, approving and including even easier and inclusion and a backlink is useful for SEO purposes. If it was for traffic a lot more would be looking for featured listings, a lot more would carefully pick the directories where to submit and there would be a lot less directories altogether. Please note how few are the ones that emphasize their actual traffic and how many claim to have plenty of with no reasonable proof. In just a few words: directories are all about SEO (at least 99%) That's my opinion.
It's interesting that pretty much everyone sees directories as a way of getting into search engines, rather than something to search in their own right. The only situation that could possibly change this would be if search engines were somehow to become unuseable, perhaps by losing the battle against ever more advanced search engine spam. Well, that won't happen in the near future. This assessment makes any directory, paid or free, utterly worthless if it doesn't have search-engine friendly links in it.
Thank you spyrit! The only thing I can see in the future about the relationship between search engines and directories with reasonable chance of guessing right, is that search engines will reduce the importance of links coming from directories. I did forget that other than for SEO purposes a link in a SEO friendly directory would probably get it indexed, but that is insignificant because it can be achieved in so many different and easy ways.
In my mind a good directory should create a directory of quality sites nothing more-nothing less. By creating a quality directory it "should" recieve traffic and thus the links added will get more visititors. The whole SEO thing towards directories is something quite un natural I think but its the way the industry is, so all good directories should be seach engine friendly.
For a general directory, the only purpose is the SEO benefit. Even in a general directory individual categories create relevance. For that reason I don't see general directories being diminished in SEO value. It's worth noting others disagree. To see if they are right watch for the PR of DMOZ to drop to zero. For a niche directory at present, both purposes can be served, SEO and click through. However, if you think about how many free and SEO-friendly directories there are in the world today - only about 300 - then consider that in a decade every niche might have 300 directories as well. When that happens then niche directories will only provide the SEO benefit. For the long run, divergence and specialization are part of the maturing of any technology, in this case the Internet. Some people consider niche directories an evolution of search. You will know that is true when the search engines begin sponsoring niche directories. In the long run, I would only count on the SEO value, even if somewhat diminished, for either type of directory. The search engines will never be able to consider only on-page factors.
No on egets any traffic from directories. It helps to get some backlinks. Nothing else. And they are cheap compared to link building!
My philosophy for the role of a directory has not changed since I started developing them over 8 years ago. 1. Develop a quality internet resource. 2. Provide good link value for the submitter. 3. Generate traffic for the submitters websites “The most difficult and expensive taskâ€.
To better organise the web. Search engine algo's are getting better, but nothing will ever beat a human review