Why are directories worth it?

Is it really worth the time to submit our sites to alot of directories. I mean, most the categories that we submit our site to have no PR. The only page on the directory that will have a high PR is usually the main page. So what's the point of taking the time to submit our site to the categories of these directories if most of them don't have any sort of PageRank?

 

1. PageRank isn't everything, even to Google.
2. Many category pages are PR1-PR4.
3. PR of successful directories will rise.
4. It's really not that much effort unless you have a lot of web sites.

Are you driven to succeed?

 

in terms of quality, directory links are like recip links (aka, not links from content pages). You can get an one-way links in a minute by directory submission. How much time do you need to get a recip link?

 

Look it from an investment perspective, these pages might not be having PR at this time, but if some of them become succesfull and your efforts are well rewarded.

 

I have a couple of niche directories, they are small, with about 60-100 categories, they NOW all have some pr. 4 front page down to 2 on some inner pages. BUT here is the funny thing, when a site submits to ME, I am not interested in the PR, not interested in the spiderability of the site, hell I am not even interested about reciprocal links, ALL I care about is that the site submitted meets the criteria for inclusion.

We come up #1 for many niche searches, and when searchers come to my directories they find great content, clear titles, nice descriptions, and a targetted search facility. I do not charge for inclusion, as I enjoy doing the job, and eventually I might chare for inclusion, who knows.

You see driven, you like many others who have got hung up on pr linking have forgotten about the most important thing on the web. TRAFFIC, and better still Qualified traffic. Sure as hell beats a bit or PR

 

It depends. How much is a good position in Search Engines worth for you? Because you are right. Intern pages are often lower PR, often many links, often not so much value. 10 directory submissions usually dont bring your website to the first slot. Having your link on the front page of a HIGH PR website with less links, might be better than 100 directory submissions.

Still for some of us, the HIGH PR front page link is hard to get, and to the others of us, we just live from our website. If directories give a slightly better results, they are worth a day spending time on submitting. Some of us here are die-hards.

And to get a top10 Google result, in some keywords, you need to be really wanting to do the work, and motivated to keep it going.... As directory submitting isnt the toughest part. Not at all.... Its not even the least rewarding part either!

 

For me its about managing my time more efficiently. I dont bother with the majority of directories out there. Only ones that I think may drive a bit of traffic my way or have decent PR on the category page I submit to.

 

It only takes a few seconds to submit to each and if you set yourself up with a good plan of attack (have a text file open with variable length descriptions etc. and a Clipboard Program to bind multiple pastes to different keys (Alt + 1 = Site name, Alt + 2 = URL, Alt + 3 = 200 char description etc.) submitting to directories becomes REALLY easy.

You really can't afford not to. If your competition gets ahead of you in that regards well, you can answer the question yourself - can you afford to lose #1?

 

And what clipboard program would that be?

 

Exactamundo! If you are hunting for pagerank, you are spinning your wheels and wasting your time IMO. I would take the approach of finding quality directories which are doing well in the search engines themselves. Those are the ones most likely to provide you with targetted traffic and help your rankings as a nice side-effect. And don't be afraid to pay for listings if you believe they are worth it. Don't base your judgement on short-term seo results but rather, like Will said (or I think he said): use your instinct to determine where the directory is headed.

I have listings in directories such as www.wowdirectory.com and those listings do help me with both, targetted traffic and rankings as well

Cheers.

 

Or install InFormEnter extension for Firefox.

 

There is a thread about Mozilla Addon to help to complete the forms:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=19351

 

I guess it never crossed my mind that there are people out there who really use these niche directories to find their service/products. I always came from the school of thought that the majority of people use the Big 3, along with a few other prominent directories (Yahoo and DMOZ) to find what they needed. But if I am reading your statements right, then apparently there is a substantial number of people who use niche directories or 2nd tier directories as well.

 

There're a substantial number of people that use anything. I mean, until I placed AdSense on my sites, I had NO idea people would actually click on ads! ;p

Besides, if you're in a business that sells/provides things, every sale/signup counts!

Yah, that works too. But it personally becomes a bit of a pain when you've got a huge list of other stuff you'd like to select to keep your descriptions (in 100-200-250-500 and 1000 character lengths), keywords (the comma separated type and the space separated individual words), anchor text (you may want to keep this varied to avoid triggering Google bomb flags - speaking of which, has anyone verified this?) organised. (wow, that was a lot of parentheses).

It's really a matter of personal preference I guess, I just find pressing key commands quickly really simplifies things (and shaves off those valuable few seconds!).

 

Submitting to directories makes me proud of my links-

 

Hey, where can I get this clipboard program? I'm getting RSI from all the alt tab - ing i'm doing.

Appreciated.

s.

 

Ignor above, I got excited and posted prematurely.

 

If you want a nice way to keep track of your submissions, check out the site in my sig
(combine it with the firefox extension and it can really save you some time)