Can somebody tell me whether google considers web directory links or its just a sheer waste of time submitting to hundreds of web directories
It probably depends a great deal on the specific Web directory and whether or not Google's penalized them in some way. Personally I'm not a fan of general Web directories, because I don't consider the links terribly valuable if they're not going to drive legitimately interested traffic. I find niche directories are usually much better in that sense, and when I target submissions carefully within a niche I don't see links being ignored.
Yes they do consider them in the sense that they are a backlink for your website, if you submit to web directories properly then you see a benefit from this. You know what, i wonder sometimes if some of the people disappointed with results from web directories are the same people that submit awfully, as when im in directories i see some horrendous listings, really spammy, over the top keyword stuffing, of course this is down to the directory owner accepting this type of submission too. If you use a directory properly, a non spam submission approach, then theres no reason why you wont see benefits, unless your in such a competitive niche that it seems no number of links from whatever sources are helping you.
I don't agree with you on this. Directories are not for traffic. How can you get traffic from a directory which has already say 10,000 links??
I submit to a handful of directories every day. I only spend a few minutes and the effort has paid off. I see many of them listed in my Google webmasters account links section. In addition, I've had success moving long tail keywords from page 2 and 3 of the SERPs to page 1. Directories shouldn't be your only link building method, but they shouldn't be ignored either.
I submit to web directories as well and I can testify that there is an improvement in SERPs when I do that. Its not so much for the traffic as it is for SEO.
Directories can offer excellent traffic if you target them well (which doesn't mean mass submissions obviously). For example, I run an indie music site. We do CD reviews. So we had the site added to several popular directories in the niche, such as directories specifically of place to submit CDs for reviews. Those directories have real value to the visitor audience, and they're marketed well to attract them. Because of that, they lead to not only nice links for link's sake, but also traffic.
It highly depends on the directory submission strategy. If you are looking to build links (which are counted by google but are constantly loosing relevance) than most directories you'll submit to wont bring much traffic. If you are submitting to highly ranked niche related directories you'll probably build less links overall but they'll have more weight to google and will bring traffic. BOTW for example is a directory that ranks highly for many keywords and apart from being a decent link to have it also generates a decent amount of clicks per month.
@OP: google definitely considers directory links. But if you want to rank for a highly competitive term like 'seo' or 'technical analysis' with just directory submissions, you would be disappointed. Try it out with a throw away domain. Try directory submission with low competitive keywords 'e.g. instant approval directory' (for example), you can now do the same thing with a slightly higher competition keyword and see for yourself that directory submission is indeed beneficial.
How do you know that? Just because Google display a backlink from a directory, how do you even know that Google is giving any 'link juice' to that link?
Cause you can rank some low targeted keywords by using directories from links, so google is considering them for sure. How do I know that they don't have much weight anymore? Cause you won't rank for anything really competitive just with directories, don't get me wrong, they are still a good source of incoming links but I wouldn't base a SEO campaign for a competitive market based on links from directories alone.
I know it because I repeatedly can improve ranks for my websites using directory submissions. That's why I said earlier. Try it yourself once. It won't cost more than $100 to buy a domain, put up decent content and try directory submission to get it ranked.
Directory Listing always counts !! positive or negative solely depends on the quality of Directory !!
yes it definitely does. Whenever i check "link:mysite.com" google shows directory links as backlinks.