At first yes, the whole object is to establish your site and get as high a PR as possible to then charge for submissions. I have paid for various featured links on various directories that I feel are worth it. It has helped a lot with PR and therefore SERPS. There are multiple ways to benefit from having a directory, you can use it to see what type of sites are being made (ideas). You can use it to help your own sites etc...
nks The point is not that -you- gain link juice. The point is that other people pay you in exchange for you giving -them- link juice.
They can be very profitable, the biggest issues come in when people just start directories and things dont happen as quick as the person wants and forgets about it, the market gets heavily saturated with crap. Nothing worth having comes easily, remember that and you will succeed at everything you do...
A)It's interesting to have directories on your site, to increase the alexa rank, many submitters have the alexa tool bar installed, and that can artificially raise the rank of your alexa. that way they can sell ads on their main site at a higher price. B)some people might sell listings and pay for their hosting that way. ( even if they make only 20$ a month from listings, it's enough ) they have another site on the same IP hosted for "free" or almost. C)50$ a month of revenue might not be a lot for you but in certain countries that is a whole lot of money. pat.
I talk about this on another thread. Search for Link Laundering... but here is how I would make money off a directory... 1.) Get your directory a high PR (get links) 2.) Get some of the more heavily-submitted sections a high PR (get links) 3.) After a preliminary period, make the directory reciprocal link based. 4.) Once one of your categories is getting between 5 and 10 reciprocal links/day - rent out the backlinks per category. Meaning, if the category is web design, instead of getting links back to your directory, sell them for $500/month to a web design company. So that when someone requests a link in your directory, they are told they must link back to "www.guy-you-sold-this-space-to-for-$500-per-month.com" to get the link. You can do that with every section of your site. 5.) Drink a beer.
Have you done that? Because just by listing that 5 step process, doesn't mean it's at as easy as five simple steps. (I assume)
`Some people use link directories to help them find information.` This is right but some webmasters overstate on investing..
IMO it's just to add up for your link popularity...backlinks will be the basis for your PR on the next update...
Some directory offer free submission as they are new, they need more traffic and submission. But personally, free directory prefer to high quality sites like dmoz. People pay for submission as the directory was highly promoted and they would get pagerank.
I don't see the problem into the fact they spend time and money into making directories, but that they start low design, almost no worked directories and expect return. I own 2 specilized directories but I have invested time into actually indexing sites and not just installing a phpLD database dump for instance (a famous DMOZ related hack that can populate your general directory with links in minutes) and worked on the layout a lot. I have many people try to index their directories in my directory and 99% of them are either on a default theme with 10 links in them or on a stock theme. Too few have a unique layout and something to really offer. Sorry if I step on any toes, it's the truth
They are fun and rewarding once you get a high PR. I like the simple script and finding unique ways of promotion. Unique directories tend to do a lot better. They are cheap to start and you can promote them for free if you wish that is why I think they are so popular. The market for them will not die anytime soon either.
Users used web directory as to find information on the web. Web Directory will increase link popularity and maybe page rank. If you submit your link to directory with page rank it will add points to your site. Do I'm right?
Regardless of how you want to look at it - submitting link and getting inbound links from high PR directories or from the directory webmaster point of view - getting paid for featured listings and/or backlinks it is still a form of profit in the long run.
nice! i always assumed design companies were using this trick. I never considered doing it for them and charging.