I'm looking to compile a list of about 50 free GOOD general directories for two websites of mine (chat room site and weight loss blog). By GOOD I mean established - age, having a pagerank 1+ wouldnt hurt, and manually adds websites to their directories as opposed to auto accepts. Looking to give me sites a slight boost in back links (along with other means of link building of course!) Thank you all
I doubt there are still good (free) directories site, unless if you are willing to pay to get listed. Anyway, I don't think getting listed on online directories is still a good strategy. If you have a blog site, I suggest that you join blog communities relevant to yours; in that way you will be able to get your site linked to something relevant to your niche.
Apart from DMOZ, I do not know of any GOOD free directories that I would risk submitting my sites to. The risk of an unnatural link penalty and penguin dinging is to high.
You can find them yourself: 1. Get a list of directories. 2. Open a web browser and check whether the directory is being updated or not. 3. Clean your list, erasing those which are not being updated. 4. Once you have got your list through that first filter, open another web browser window and type www.google.com. 5. On the Google search bar type: site:example.com 6. Remove from the list those directories which are not indexed by the search engine, as those links will never be crawled or count for you. 7. Once you have got your list through that second filter, you can start submitting.
Typically, paid vs not paid, is what separates good directories from the bad ones. There are a handful of good directories that do not charge for listings (like dmoz), but those are rare.