Like you said you have to ask yourself if it is worth your time to do it or not. As someone who has done it manually I can tell you that it is time intensive with no real hope of getting results. With that being said if you can pay someone $10 to submit to 200 directories, and even if you get accepted into 50-75 for $10 its not a bad deal. I mean whats $10? Unless you have no buget its worth a shot.
I purchased directory submission for 6 of my sites and after paying over $380 for all of them and 5 months gone by, I got listed into 35 directories. Which I think is a waste of time, and money.
Quarter! Heck I know most SEO wizards probably new that stuff already, but to me it's worth a bunch of quarters! Thanks for the tips! I've put in place some good interlinking within my blog network, and I've dones some decent soliciting of links using various methods (asking, link-baiting, etc) but I need to start doing more and building my way in the Google rankings. I've now been able to hire bloggers so that frees up a little more of my time to work on SEO, I haven't even touched the subject since I started my network. These are all great tips and insight into a somewhat "everyone has their own opinion" topic.
That sucks. $10 isn't worth a lot..but $380? I started manually submitting my new site last Monday. It really takes a lot of my time..and effort. I am actually considering malcom1's services.
Here's another tip for getting the most out of submission services: read the DMOZ guidelines, because they define what most directories are after: http://www.dmoz.org/add.html You could use these to write your own site descriptions, or test a submission service by comparing the descriptions they provide against these guidelines. If they can't come up with something that is DMOZ-compliant, or if their idea of a good submission is simply the first sentence or two from your homepage, then you know you're onto a loser.
Speaking of DMOZ, who do you have to pay over there to get into that directory? I've gone so far as trying to become an editor but I feel as though their servers have been down for ever.
I consider it sometimes, but I think its best done when done by yourself. You never know if the person you pay to submit will actually submit unless they provide a spreadsheet of directories submitted.
Hi I can tell you that it is very time consuming. I submitted my blog to around 250 PR4+ directories myself --it took 3 days. But I am getting benefits as notices of my site being aproved are pouring into my mail. Just got approved by Jaydee today! It depends also on your goal what you want by submitting to directories. Most dirertories give PR0 subpages. So if you are looking to get PR with listing in huge amount directories that is not really on. But I accept that it improves your link popularity and indexed pages.
I don't use a submission service. Instead I just try to plow through the list a few directories a day. I've had good results that way on a gambling strategy website. I've got a top ten google spot for all the competitive keywords in my industry. It took a year though. A little work every day and some patience paid off.
Well to conclude, all this submission works, it just takes hell a lot of time to do it right. Also it really depends on your site. If you'll try to submit your 5 pages adsense-only-site don't expect good results! Really! Also don't go for cheapest price. Average on DP is $10 for 100 and it still VERY LOW. Each dir should be studied before submission for it's policies, etc. Lowballers just do clicks on "submit" and don't care about results. They don't read policies, they will consider submit done even if you already listed (duplicate), they will submit to non-related dirs, to paid dirs and don't pay so you will not get link, they have outdated lists, non-working and recip dirs. I will not even say that most of them use tools, which automate process and in wrong way, cause even with semi-auto tool it will costs more in the end. Well I can continue but you've got the point. You get what you pay for.
Nice replies thus far. I've decided to submit my sites to a 1-3 directories per day, spending about 30 minutes a day on this. I have some more questions related to directory submission but I think another thread would be the best place for all that.
Yeah, what I'm doing right now is submitting to all the directories people offer for free in the DP solicitations forum. I'm working on doing at least 2 a day. It takes some time, but hopefully I'll see some progress in a month or so.
A good writer. For certain categories that's really all it takes. 10 minutes per directory is far too long. An experienced submitter could do it faster manually. What you need to do is prepare all your details in advance, in several versions. And rather than cut-and-paste you should use a browser plugin to fill the submission forms in. I use Form Saver for FireFox, for instance.