hi yall i was reading some posts about directories the found one who listed some good directories. Then i chosed one randomly (im not going to mention the url ... since the owners might be reading and dont want me to talk about them. but it exists!) ... and ... made the mat... and with their 500 categories each one with 9 links... they do have total of 4500 links ... paying them a recurring fee of 24.95 USD . so they make ... 112'500 USD / Year ?! Note: yes... they pay ... cause there is no free submission or anything similar. is that right cause it sounds like a fortune .. !!!
Heh. In several directory scripts it takes 10 minutes to change from a "free" to a "24.95 USD recurring fee". And when you have it free, you get A LOT. I get 80-100 submissions per day on my free one.
oh ... but if they put if free they dont get money ... :\ so they dont really make much monney... or do they?
4500 links. Ok, either they made that money, or they inserted the database of links into a new paid directory or they changed from free to paid when they had those links. I think the last alternative. But I know several with the first alternative. (John Scott, Stuart etc.)
There is no doubt that several directories make a LOT of money. It's not something easy and will take years of work if it happens, the directory business is the wrong industry if your looking to make some quick - easy money.
I think a lot of directories start off accepting free submissions. Then they grow, get on the receiving end of lots of spam, and change to only accepting paid or reciprocal submissions. Time passes, they grow some more, and if they're still around they move to pure paid directories. If a directory nukes all the links that don't keep paying the recurring fee, it could end up without any content to show to visitors. So there are very few directories around that are entirely full of paid-for links. Even Yahoo has sites that get in for free.
If you take true stats a good directory which can provide pr 3, 4 link back can earn 10000-12000 / year. Most start with free. But the amount you have mentioned it's impossible for sure.