I wanted to know if web directories are helpful other than SEO or building link. Are there people who really visit a web directory and browse it to find a website. Who would do when they can search easily using a search engine?
Very few people visit general directories. Directory listings can help your rankings and you have some say in the link text used.
They may not visit directories directly, but search engines do. My directory (see homepage) gets visits from SEs all the time and provides searchers with much of the information they are after.
directories play an important role in the online ecology ; if i may tag it that, they are older tan the search engines, and they are here to stay! ever so often i read "are they helpful", ... if they weren't they wouldn't be here....?? logic! in the world of today they play an important role in providing back links, minimal traffic, and do help in the SERP standing of ur site M.
There are a lot of niche directories that are well edited and have a following. Those directories send traffic...and some of that traffic will give you a natural link. There are also a few general directories that will give you traffic too (I get maybe 10 hits a month from general directories).
Directories definately have their use, i refer to them as the low hanging fruit of link building. Try and add your site to the section that is specific to your niche.
Links from directories do help in a small amount but you will hardly see any traffic coming from directories. SticKer
Of course directory submission is heful in building backlinks. One great advantage of directory submission is that it is an easy and fast way to win backlinks without spending too much. It helps to get sites indexed by search engines faster. However, although there are several advantages of directory submissions, it is still a time consuming task with many unpredictable questions.
It is depends on the side that gain benefits from web directory. Webmasters - It is useful for SEO purpose. You can get one way links from directories easily as many ones offering free submission. Common Peoples - It is useful for search some specific niche information. However, I assume only big directory such as Business.com / Yahoo Directory or specific niche directory could be useful. Otherwises general directory is useless. I think only a few common peoples do search for the info in unknown general directories, even a big ones I mentioned still has a small amount of traffics.
its a good idea to analyse your competitionsbacklinks and see what diretories are providing the most seo value for them.
Anyway, we want to spread our website around the world using all the free services, not only directory submission. In my experience, it is useful to generate backlinks.
Niche directories and local business directories are still very useful. Among 'general' directories, I would say goweb2.0 is the only one I visited to 'browse' sites.