Think of the searchengine owner that won't to give their customers as god results as possible. Think of the normal users that don't have any sites but want to search for usefull information in the search engines. Think of the webdesigner that create a good website and then need to spend some hours to get linked in the directories(just because to match competition). Those three parts needs to pay a big price just because some people wont to have a piece of the cake. I've already heard some people comparing directory results in google with spam emails. I have a directory hosting myself but that hasn't generated any big money so I'm pretty tired of this. And if you want to give me a red for this post than do it, I don't care.. answer to this issue is much more important to me than my rep, thanks
I'm not sure I am clear on the question but... Many directories will let just any site in, especially when they are new. Once they get a certain PR or traffic rate they consider themselves established and become paid directories. Some still require reciprocal links. And most of these get their money with paid inclusion and/or ads posted on the site. These directories are open to everyone with no standards for inclusion beyond a reciprocated link or cash-type payment. These directories are cluttered with spam. And Google has develued them. Industry/niche directories are still thriving and those do offer value for their visitors, the SEs and the web masters. They have standards for inclusion and are usually manually reviewed to ensure the sites match those standards. These are often paid directories that offer a money-back guarantee if your site is not accepted. Anyway, Matt Cutts recently discussed the differences at SES(? - I think) in Las Vegas.
oK, i mean more specific what are they good for? I never use a categories-for-all-kinds-of-sites-directory personally other than DMOZ when I'm looking for sites. I use niche dirs only when they are static and links are added by the wemaster of that site.
I am webmaster over three sites in the same industry. One of those sites is listed with a niche directory that sends about 60 visitors per month our way. So it is useful for that. That site also gets the BLs from the directory. What's great is that site is only 4 pages. So an extra 60 visits is a big deal.
For surfers a niche directory will often provide more targetted results than a search engine, especialy for small niches For webmasters: PR Linkback SEO (keyphrases in anchor text) Traffic
The best thing that come in in mind about directory is you can submit your website in it which will increase your rank with others.
Ok, but there are thousands health and car directories out there. You can't really add something usefull to the web if you just start a new real estate directory that everyone are bored on.
So... You'd don't like directories because you never use them and haven't had any success with them? Ask yourself these questions. What is a phone book? What purpose does it serve? It's a directory too only offline. -Jon
Register at many directories with proper anchor text, do a link campain, do press releases, oh, and make good content. This gets you on the way to having a popular site.
I may understand what latehorn is getting at. What 'real' value does dirs give to the internet other then a easy way to score a backlink. From new dirs to estiblished ones like dir.yahoo and dmoz who visits these dirs other then webmasters? One of my sites are listed in DMOZ, but i have not received a single referal from them. To answer your question latehorn is not much at all other then search engine optimization. There are too many dirs which focues their promotional efforts to webmasters and not the public. Honestly I am waiting for the day when SEs devalues all the dirs except for dmoz. Can anyone honestly say that dirs really improve the quaility of the web??? Also I would like to see all the links in yahoo.dir devalue, asking for $200 for inclusion is such a RIP OFF!!! As i recall Matt Cutts does not approve of buying links and this is a perfect example of one.
Well, I think my directory improves the quality of the web, honestly. Every reasonably good site, even the smallest ones, improve the quality of the web.
Please give me an example of how dirs improve the quality other then helping our sites with search engine results? I would agree and should correct myself that dirs give quality to the web by giving webmasters an easy way to target keywords for search engines, by defining anchor text in their directory submissions. While this is a good example of added value to the internet, when I first wrote the perious post I was trying to view dirs from the viewpoint of the average joe.
A directory that add links to quality sites (and organize them and describe their content) adds some value to the web. Value to whoever it uses that directory (the average joe or even search engines). For example some niche directories, and some general ones, like dmoz, may be used by real people to find sites, and also by search engines to improve their results.
It's thomasnet.com and the bennefit it provides extends beyond SEO as it send direct traffic our way.
There's not a billion kinds of phonebooks that looks all the same. I'm not against directories as long as it's not just poor dmoz copy.