Web Directories future, or no future

Are Web Directories Dead?
From many posts here I would say many people do not think so.
But, as per Google search trend, the interest in web directories drops rapidly to nothing.



In addition the biggest interest (traffic) in web directories coming from India, Pakistan, Singapore and Philippines, meaning you cannot have good income from that niche as well.

Should we invest our time submitting websites to different web directories, if there is no interest in these directories and traffic constantly decreasing?

 

What you see in trends is search index, and not the article directory traffic. Article directories do get lot of type in traffic which is not in above graph.

 

The graph shows search trend. It means traffic to web directories from search engines goes down constantly. And main traffic is direct traffic from the same sourses or some kind of automatic scripts.

 

Sometimes it takes two pictures to paint a thousand words. This is a graph of google trends for "Search Engine Optimization". Notice the slope is similar...however it seems to have stabilized a bit more. So part of the decrease in searching is that webmasters educated themselves in the early 2000's and now have less interest in the subject. However, you'll notice that news articles are now being written for the masses which is helping to stabilize the interest in the keyword.

 

Something else picture doesn't show is that 5 years ago people relied on search engines for information
and now thousands sites have all kind of stuff they can find without going to search engines.
Take vmoptions for example. We get more traffic from them than from Google effectively making
Google Trend data Specious

Also, it doesn't show that people got sick and tired dealing with cesspool directories and lost interest
because submitting to such .info directories is nothing but waste of time whereas top echelon
of directories are going strong and doing much more better than ever.



fastreplies

 

freelistfool and fastreplies, you both brought good points. My directory also receives most of its traffic from vmoptions and direct traffic. But sources of traffic are India, Pakistan and other similar countries. That traffic mostly brings spam. You cannot make sales from these sources. The main interest in web directories today is getting link to get PR , and not find website of your interest. Today search engines are enough sofisticated and thre is no need for additional resources to get website info. Today web dirs used mainly for SEO, but not in a good way. Since many webmasters obsessed with backlinks and PR, google now not considers last two as most important, which makes web dirs irrelevant.

 

So what? It doesn't make any difference to us who is paying us for reviews and inclusion.
Granted, from between 3 and 10 Express reviews requests we're getting, half are spam but...
the fact that they are coming from India says that people around the world sub-contracting
Indian companies to submit their SEO stuff to save money.

Only 1 in 10 sites from India and that region and the rest from all over and owned by
Western companies. Yes, it would be nice if owners themselves visited our directory and learn
what we have to offer but hey... we get paid regardless who visited our site and that what counts.



fastreplies

 

Web directories always has a future - it was some years back a good buzz about web directories not useful and need to shutdown - but you need to develop the web directories in a way to make it survive.

Hope it helps...

 

I dont agree with the positive future of web directories! because there were some days when web directories produces solid preference among Search Engines but these days every next web directory is made up of crappy dropped down domains and people making it only for business not for the quality!!! I must say there are only few chunk of directories available which are sufficient to give Impressive Listings! with Quality

 

One of the main problems is huge number of directories. Creating directory today is very easy. You just buy a ready to go php web directory code and domain name. Submit to other directory list and leave that site on autopilot till it will filled up. And unfortunate reality is that most of directories are like that. All this creates bad reputation for whole niche, and just brings more and more spam into it, making whole web directory market irrelevant, looking spammy and fishing.
If before search engines used web directories as quality website database, now they trying to avoid them. Today web directories play huge role in link building strategies, and this is what search engines don't like and trying to avoid, enhancing their algorithms to filter these out.
If before PR was the most important ingredient in SEO, today it is not and is far from being important. why? Because people learn how to trick the system and get high PR for junk website. That is why Google considers content as #1. content you cannot trick, it something you have or you doesn't.

 

I personally think general directories well eventually die except for link building purposes. Some people would say that this has happened already. I believe there is still live in niche directories that specialize in a certain field. When I stumble upon them doing my searches I find them useful for the user.

 

yes and many spammers from rusia and india

 

Probably more of a reflection of where you're promoting your directory?

54% of my traffic is from the US and only 17% from India. I try to avoid listings on "directory lists" and forums such as this one as all they invite are spam and crappy submissions.

 

The quality web directories always have bright future!

 

CReed, yes mostly Im promoting here and on several web dir lists. If you don't mind to share what are the other options to get traffic from north america (or just pm me).

 

A directory is like any other site, create a resource and it will be successful.

 

I agree with you although there are still niche directories or blogs that can and will provide better resources than SE, therefore are worth submitting to.
More general the directory is, less likely it will provide valuable resources simple because usually those free GD will admit just about any website with reciprocal link.
And even paid listings don't always translate to quality.
I own several local and niche directories, some I am pretty sure are used daily as an useful source of quality information. Take http://polishdeli.info for example.

And even if it takes me years to collect a 1000 quality business listings I don't mind that. Quality is, and always will be the main criteria. I have no doubts I can't compete with Google local listings but at least I can try

 

You have a point here. I have example of one of my websites that receives 30% of its' visitors from buyitcanada.com, and 0 from DMOZ.
But I don't know if people coming from buyitcanada, coming because they visited this website and searched something there, or because they searched on google and got results from buyitcanada related to my website.
I, as owner, want my website will be returned in SERP and not web directory with listing of my website. What happens in fact is that buyitcanada got promoted and got higher rankings for keywords that I competing for.
So, may be web directories are good for really new websites, that have no traffic, and directories are actually the main source for their visitors, but going forward, in long term, this is not what website owners want.

 

I have already wrote an article about the future of web directories almost a year ago, you can view the article from here: Web Directories Future

 

I am not sure if I follow.. you actually do not want the traffic from buyitcanada.com only because it competes with you for the same keywords?
It's a FREE traffic!
it's like having your AdWord campaign right on your competitor website without paying a dime for it!

I guess submitting to low quality directories will do the trick then, just like the dmoz 0 visitors. Is this what you prefer?