What would you say are the most worthwhile paid general directories? If you had $100 to spend on directory submissions which ones would you choose?
I would start with the Microsoft Small Business Directory and SEOMA. Here are some other paid web directories.
you can take a look at sevenseek.com, uncoverthenet.com, hotvsnot.com, site-sift.com, haabaa.com, businessseek.biz, anthonyparsons.com and many more.
I would certainly agree with CanadianEh about seoma, very seo friendly. It would probably be better to get best value for money, like onestop as it has a decent PR. Does the name of the directory really make any difference? Would being listed in the well known more expensive directories make any more difference to your ranking, than lets say submitting to more, cheaper less well known ones with decent PR. Are search engine algorithms really capable of giving someone a better ranking because of the directory? People assume it does, but does it really?
Google prides itself on doing everything in an automated way and I doubt that it gives better rankings to a directory by name. The only exception may be DMOZ. There are some well known directories that will give you some traffic. I find that, overall, traffic is a much small factor in choosing a directory. There are so many directories that the traffic from one single directory is negligible.
I am right there with you on that. Before I pay money to submit to a directory, I want some hard facts on what I will get from it. What is going to make my link more valuable by paying someone to list it? If paying for that listing guarantees me to show up in 1000 other directories, then I am in.
Most get zero or very little traffic from directories. That being the case, only the BLs have value. You can submit to hundreds of free directories and get free BLs. We have never paid to be in a directory... not even Yahoo's. Save your money.
I agree with Will, if your budget is only $100, 4-5 directories is not going to do much for you, but anyways, every little thing helps.
I would use the $100 to get a few solid links from high PR directories like the ones that have been mentioned and then I would compliment them by doing my own submitting to hundreds of free ones.
It tends to work well. I must also put a plugin for those directories that give quick links to sub-pages. They work great for getting sub-pages indexed and even some PR. Well worth the small fee IMO.
Sorry, I got busy and kinda forgot to come back I already do submissions to free directories myself and was looking to supplement. I have seen most of the ones mentioned. I'll have to go back and check them out again. I'm basically looking for a few "definative" directories. $100 may be a low budget for that but I wanted to see what people do on a budget. Anybody can throw $299 a year at Yahoo! Is Microsoft SBD still worth it? I discovered that a bit late about a month or so ago and it seems saturated. Still worth it? Thanks for all the replies!
Its interesting that Microsoft SBD actually just dropped from PR8 to PR6. I haven't figured out why yet. I aggree that MSBD is getting pretty crowed. If you submitting to a category that is extremely crowed then I would say it is not an automatic yes as it was in the past.
Hey all, Which paid directory has worked best for you? What's your industry and how many visitors a day (approximately) does it bring? best, james p.s. please refrain from steering this thread to DMOZ
I have put a plugin for Abilogic, If you pay the $10 fee you get some quick links to sub-pages which is very nice.