I would say that the time of starting a directory today might be too late. You can potentially make some money with a directory but it would take some time for you to build up PR and traffic for people to want to submit their link and pay you money. If you submit your site to 20 directories would be completely worthless, unless you submit it to Yahoo directory in different countries and Business.com directory and some other big name prices directories.
you don't notice a PR increase, but you get indexed in search engines faster than if you did nothing.
PR has nothing what so ever to do with directories, but there are many quality directories that provide focused through traffic and when you submit to these directories you get great indexing on the SE's for your listed review
There are still some directories that can pass PR, but those are quality directories and you should have a real content website in order to get listed there. Also prepare to spend some $$$ on those.
i believe that directories help in serps and at gain PR and at get your site full indexed that is the main reasons i submit to a directory and not for traffic wich in my experience is low to nan.
by submitting to directories you can get some amount of traffic but to get the PR you need to have quality backlinks...
almondj a directory will receive traffic, quite a lot if its a free one and pretty constant too, if its a paid directory then substantially less, but that isn't set in stone as it depends on the amount of promotion for the directory and how successful that promotion is. Sending traffic out from the directory is another story, many will struggle to send traffic out, in all honesty, again not set in stone though, depends on what the directory is doing, and if its a niche it may be quite popular.
The problem with directories that once you've seen one, you've seen them all. Bring me a directory with unique features. Tagging system. Allowing visitors to leave comments on websites they've visited. Thumbnails for the site.
http://www.topseodir.com/index.php?list=latest there you go thumbnails and a chance to leave a review
Same Here: http://www.paiddirectory.com/latest-links.html There are many directories with good features, especially the ones cared about.
Whats the Tagging system? the thumbnails are almost standard, leaving comments is allowed on some as you can see, its things beyond these again that would really set a directory apart.
Firstly most directories dont give a lot of traffic - bid directories are the best for traffic. If you submit to 20 directories you may see a pr increase if your links are on pages with pr. Regardless of pr you should still recieve a nice serp boost.
Directories do bring traffic obviously. Running after PR is a old idea. You should focus more on traffic. Running a directory is still good if you can maintain it very well. If not dont bother starting a crap one.
If you can do a better work running a directory is waste of time. No money Spam is killing some submit as paid link and do not pay. Google is looking at the directories as PR sellers and is killing the business. Best is a Blog, if you know how to pick a good niche and write quality content.