As i read from other blogs directory submission is not counted on SEO today. I don't know if it is true.
Its not that its not counted, its now suggested that its not as high on the list (suggestion wise) as like 5 years ago. I remember when i first began reading about SEO, and nearly always one of the first suggestions (by professional writers) was to use web directories. Now, because of new marketing methods, which is quite normal, it means these newer methods often get mentioned more, so naturally web directories are less talked about in that sense because they are established, have been for some time now. So to answer your question, yes directories are counted.
Directory submissions to free and good paid directories will definitely show you results. As others pointed out ROI for this work has definitely gone down. But it's not out of my list of SEO tasks.
I have done about 5000 directory submits 5 months ago but haven't get good result from them. I don't believe there is any point to do directory submission. Get backlinks is very hard presently.
Did you do about 5K all in one go yeah? were they free or paid and how many titles and descriptions did you use? how many approvals did you receive and what type of website were you submitting?
It's impossible to do 5000 submits manually in short time. I had scheduled myself to submit about 100 directories per day with a fill form tool. After three month or more I check backlinks that received for this process but it's gained a little backlinks and no PR improving as 0, what's this! Directory is tedious work. I don't know what 's cause - from strict approving , nofollow links of most directory or directory is low important for Search engine now.
I dont know what site you were submitting so its hard to say. Sometimes people will say how disappointed they were with directory submissions then when you find out how they were doing it, the type they were using and the type of site submitted it can sometimes explain why.
They are somehow valuable, but right now they aren't put so much value on as they used to some time ago.
Socialbookmarking is powerfull today because i got highest pr on my blogs just for submitting socialboomarking sites. and I didn't do directory submission.
A backlink is a backlink is a backlink people. Social networking sites are popular for backlinks because they are crawled quickly and get your site indexed quickly. Directory submissions however might take forever and therefore not help those with little patience.
i find directories used to be a huge component in advertising your business, but now with the proliferation of low pr valued directories and with the advent of hoards of directories, most entries are spread out everywhere. Some directories still count big time, like best of the web, and yahoo directory, but they cost a fair amount of money. I still add my sites to directories, just because it cant really hurt you, but it doesn't hugely benefit you either. My philsophy is more exposure is never a bad thing.