So have a lot of other people, but you should always try just in case you get lucky. Remember they will not list affiliate sites, so don't waste your time submitting an affiliate site, but anything else should always be submitted.
I Think one of my website was accepted into the directory. But I Forgot which one ..lol after so many years of submitting .... so couple of days ago, I applied to be an editor.. hope to have better luck with that
I have seen ranking results with only free directory submissions. They work great on MSN (of course), but also help on Google and Yahoo.
How competitive were the keywords? You can get ranking with a single backlink if your keywords are unique enough. I'm talking about relatively competitive keywords and commercial web sites.
Well, some of them were competitive...of course, I didn't get top rankings just with directories on those competitive keywords, but I saw rankings increase.
You could also do a link search for links to your competitors' sites. I find that many links to my competitors' sites are on personal sites, grad students' sites, university professors' pages, etc, in their "Favorite Links" section. They are usually not exclusively loyal to my competitors, so sending them a request to be added to their page often gets a positive response. I also do many searches on the topic related to my website's theme. I then go through the results and see if any of the pages have a section in which my site could be listed. However, I do NOT immediately send off a link to my site. Even if they have a statement on their site indicating that they accept suggestions for new websites (i.e. - "If you know of a website that should be considered for inclusion in our list, please send an e-mail to . . . or use the contact form on page . . . " ), I think it is better to send them an initial contact e-mail first, asking them if they are still accepting submissions. I am extremely paranoid about being accused of spamming, so I send them a short e-mail--WITHOUT without my website URL indicated anywhere--and ask them if they are still taking suggestions. Because I am not selling anything, or have a URL within the e-mail, I cannot be accused of spamming. Plus I think many webmasters appreciate the extra courtesy of being asked. If they reply in the positive, THEN send them your URL for their consideration.
The other effective technique that many over-look is provide a strong 'on-page' (on your site) reason to link to you: Custom software, free stuff, HIGHLY educational, contraversy (fine line) just to mention a few. If you do this correctly you don't have to put much aggresion into your link building campaign...everyone just wants to link to you AND it's usually relevant. I also see this as an honest vote, Google probably would too
I usually find it hard to tell which directories are worth their salt and which are ones are not. I would of course do the usual checks in Google to se how many pages they got indexed, if they are mostly supplementals, if the PR is real or fake... But still... For me to pay a directory for a listing I would want to have some kind of traffic coming out as well, I do not need 1000+ visitors a day, but at least a little trickle... it all adds up Kim
We have a site which belongs in a very small category, it ranks very well on all its main keywords and is seen by many as an authority site on this subject. I have tried submitting to Dmoz a couple of times over the last 3 years with no result. The category I am trying to get in to only has 2 listings, but at least one of these is listed in a bunch of sub categories in this tree as well, which leads me to believe I am up against someone with self interests in those listings. I basically stopped submitting to Dmoz now, it is sad as the idea of a huge human edited directory of quality sites is a great idea, but it kind of got derailed with some editors being self serving. Kim