Web Directories

I noticed a lot of people and companies are still submitting their sites to web directories and I wonder if it’s worth the trouble and money? Let’s be honest, the vast majority of web directories are nothing more than organized link farms, most directories will accept any site that’s submitted simply to build their database.

Recently Google actually removed the section of their webmaster guidelines that said to submit to web directories, yes, they removed it. In other words, they no longer recommend that as a good SEO option.

That’s not to say all directories are bad, getting into DMOZ is still a great idea in my opinion. Also getting into any niche directory is still a good idea. It’s the general web directories that I’d stay away from, especially the ones that charge money and even worse the ones who let you bid on your directory positioning. I’ve seen directory after directory get his with penalties because of selling links or positions.

What about the Yahoo Directory? I’ve never personally submitted one of my sites there because in my opinion $300 can be used better elsewhere. You can get lots of other nice stuff for your site for $300. There was once a guy on DP that knew an exploit to get into the Yahoo Directory at will, he was selling submissions for $60 or something, he had literally 100’s of orders in the first day, dunno how that went. I didn’t buy one because I’m sure Yahoo discovered what was going on and patched the exploit and removed all the sites that guy submitted.

I still think niche directories are a good idea. Say you have a site about web design, go submit it to web design related directories. Should you pay? Meh, I don’t know, I probably wouldn’t in most cases but you have to make up your own mind about such things.