Yicrosoft Directory

Before, directory submissions were the rage, with new site owners trying their very best to make their site presentable to the All Mighty DMOZ. (Even the Yicrosoft Directory is not listed in DMOZ yet.) The value of submitting to directories were both to help new sites get in the Google Index quicker, as well as increase link popularity.

However, today in the eyes of SEO, directories have lost a lot of value, with so many bad directories emerging from the bunch. Directories these days require a submission fee to a directory that may not pass any link popularity and drive zero traffic. Make sure if you are paying a directory submission fee, you are getting some value out of it..

If you are paying a directory to list your site, or even paying just to put it in the submission queue, you need to make sure you are getting your bang for your buck. With that being said, you need to do a little directory research before you make any type of payment. A quick way to check if it’s worth it is to check the PR (even though it’s not worth much anymore, it’s still a good indicator of authority).

If a directory has hundreds of listings in a specific category, you have to realize that “Link Juice” will be spread to all of those websites in that category, thus, devaluing each new site added to the category. On the other hand, if that directory brings in a lot of traffic to your site, it may as well be worth it to keep it in that directory. These are just a few of the pro’s and con’s you need to consider when submitting to a directory.

Here are a few guidelines to follow when deciding whether or not to submit to a directory:

1. No Traffic - If a directory is not getting any traffic to it, your website, in turn will not get any, making it useless to waste your time/money submitting.
2. No Substance - Even if a directory has a wide list of categories, if there aren’t any links in them, it is the same thing as a website with no content.
3. Not Indexed - If the directory is not getting its pages indexed in Search Engines on a regular basis, they will not find your site, unless they specifically go to the directory, which is rare.
4. Low PageRank - Like I said before, it’s good to be in a category page that has some decent PageRank.

So before you disregard submitting to directories altogether, like the Yicrosoft Directory, you should really weigh in on a few select ones and do your research to try and squeeze as much SEO value as you can from the dying breed of quality directories.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2008 at 2:00 am and is filed under Directory Submission. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.