Directories - The “Human Factor”

A directory is much the same as a search engine but it differs in the way in which the information is collected from the web. Search engines use spiders to crawl the web and scour websites following links to move about the world network. All the while dumping information back into the search engine index.

Directories are edited by “humans”, meaning a real person views submitted sites and may add them to its database if the quality of the site meets its standards..

The directory editors job is to find quality sites to add to its database as well as review submitted sites. With this in mind directory databases are somewhat smaller than search engines but the quality of returned search results are suppose to offset this.

As a real person will view your site it is imperative that your site is of a high standard. Be sure your website meets at least the minimum quality standard set by the directory you are submitting to.

Factors Determining Your Site Addition to a Directory

If you say yes to any of the website “bad habits” in the folllowing list, fix the problems and double check the fixes BEFORE submitting your site to any directory.

Does your site contain:

• broken links
• broken images
• bad colour schemes
• flashing text or images
• obscured text
• typos
• under construction signs
• no unique content
• very little content
• affiliate link farm
• bad navigation
• supports english language

These are just a few but if you answered yes to any, fix the problems first before submitting your site for review.

Major Directories

Directory submission to DMOZ is a must. This directory is free submission, edited by volunteers and boasts some 4 million site links in its database making it one of the largest directories on a global scale.

Yahoo! is another major directory and is beneficial to have your site listed with them. Yahoo! offers a standard submission for non-commercial sites and Yahoo! Express submission for commercial sites, although this will require you to part with some cash to the tune of $299 non refundable, recurring annual fee. The fee will guarantee a review by an editor within 7 days, but does not guarantee your site will be listed.

Food for Thought

On a final note when designing your site with SEO in mind think about what really annoys you with some sites you visit, chances are if your site has any of these annoying attributes it may lead to it not being added to a directory database.

The two main differences between search engines and directories are:

search engines use spiders to gather site information

directories use “real people” to view your site for acceptability into its database

search engines have a larger database

directories supposedly return higher quality search results

Submit your site to a number of web directories listed at the searchbuster Web directory to gain more backlinks to your site.

With thousands of directories already on the world wide web and new ones popping up everyday, you may think it is a waste of time starting a directory. This is not true, for as many directories that are newly established, there are directories that simply vanish.
To get an idea of how many directory pages are out there simply do a Google all in title search for the word directory.
Exampl: allintitle: directory
The results consist of many types of directories which we will cover in a later chapter, but you get the idea of what you are up against.
To get an idea of how many new directories are being started you can visit a couple of webmaster forums such as digitalpoint or v7n or one of my favourites the vilesilencer forums where new directory owners announce to the world their new directory.

Best Web Directories has sited an excellent analysis of the recent move by Google to penalize quite a few directories. It is a very good analysis so far but far from complete, although it would have to be the most compiled and sorted information I have seen to date regarding the directory penalties and a far more thorough examination than the usual guff from DP members in the directory forum.

The directory industry has had a shakeup by Google over the past 3-4 days with some of the more popular directories being moved down in the serps. Google has lashed out at what it thinks are directories manipulating it’s search results through the use of interlinking with buddy directories and capitalizing on paid links.

Some 60+ directories have been affected by the recent move from Google, which to be fair, Matt Cutts warned that paid links would not be tolerated and a penalization may occur. This has sparked an outcry from directory owners affected by the move by Google and there are some forum threads running hot at webmaster forums such as DigitalPoint discussing the issue, one in particular here.

While it does not appear the directories have been banned, it does appear they have received some sort of penalization. Dave Eaves of Biz Directory was one such owner hit with the penalty or whatever we would like to call it, he has spoken out in a recent interview about what maybe the causes and possible solutions to get dropped pages back into Google’s index.

This not only is affecting some directories but there are also reports of non directory sites being hit as well. This makes me wonder if it could just be a move in serps or a Google glitch, either way we will keep watching and waiting for the outcomes, to date searchbuster.org has not been affected by this..

With an ever increasing trend of new bidding directories I thought I would start my own, everyone seems to be doing it, it’s just a matter of sorting the chaff from the wheat. Launched today ausbidlink.com using the phpLB script and a rather nice template from Nerve Directory.

Where traditionally link activation is almost instantaneous once you have paid for your first bid amount, I have opted for activation after payment, within 24hrs if your site is listable. This way I can keep a tight hold on the quality of sites listed in our bid directory.

Benefits: Users will benefit by being able to bid their listings in categories higher and if in the top 10 bidders will have their listing displayed on our homepage.

Features include:

Website Listing Statistics - Back link information from 3 major search engines and .edu and .gov sites.

Deep Links - Deep linking in to the same domain, 3 deep links allowed.

Alexa Traffic Graph

Social Bookmarking Links - Allows users to save your detail page to their favorite social bookmarking sites.

Here is a preview of the detail page you will get with a listing in ausbidlink.com.

The directory will be heavily promoted with traffic being funneled to it from my directory network. Google has visited the site already and we have commenced site submission to our list of trusted and respected directory owners.

Bids start at $1.00