What is a Web Directory?

A web directory in its simplest form is a human indexed search engine. Human submits reviews and approves directory listings. It is a human edited collection of website listings.

There are two types of web directories. General and topical niche directories. General directories list sites in too many broad categories. Niche directories concentrate on specific topics and usually the number of categories will be less and highly related to that particular topic.

Purpose of a Web Directory : 

 The important purpose of a web directory is to classify web’s quality sites into its diverse categories for easy reference. This is helpful for directory users in way that only quality sites will be listed and visitors can easily find these sites by checking the category of their interest.

 Unfortunately, this main purpose has lost importance lately because of the evolution of search engines. Modern search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing shows relevant sites for every each search term you enter into their search boxes without much human intervention. Thus, the great directories those were once a surfer friendly paradise has given way to advanced search engines technologies.

Directory Submission and Search Engine Ranking

 As search engines evolved, webmasters started optimizing websites for the search engines. With current search engine technology, links play an important role in ranking algorithms. This resulted in brand new use for web directories – as a source of one-way links. Now a day’s, directories are given great importance for their search engine friendliness and the quality of backlinks.

 Directories in present form are considered as an efficient source of quality one-way backlinks. As directories classify websites in different topics, one-way links from related pages (category pages) are given huge importance by major search engines.

 There is also another theory on value of links from directories. Since directories are strictly human reviewed, they are supposed to list only quality web sites within different categories. Thus, search engines may give higher value for the backlinks from directories.

 Submitting to directories are not worth unless they give some direct traffic or otherwise a quality back link. Thus, next time when you submit to a directory check their search engine friendliness and the possible chances of getting some direct traffic. If you can find any of those properties, do not hesitate to submit your site. You will definitely get something back in return!

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