 Topics: web directories , pagerank , evaluation, link popularity , dmoz, zend, yahoo...
The difference between a web directory and a search engine is human editing and publishing. Web directories employ people who review and categorize web sites. They rely on the judgement of a “Human Editor” assigned to evaluate Web sites' contents for inclusion in their listings. Web directories are now generally growing in importance. Most of all directory listings provide authoritative, gategorized, precious inbound links to listed sites, and THIS is the reason why after publishing your website / network you should consider adding your site to as much directories as you can.
There are two kinds of web directories:
1. General Directories : These are the most important directories because provide general, authoritative, information on the web, and it is important that your site is properly submitted to them. These directories are very general in nature, meaning they include many different categories and subcategories such as shopping, school, art, businness, and so on...
DMOZ (Open Directory Project) : www.dmoz.org
From Official site: "The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors." ODP links are treated like gold by Pagerank™. It doesn't even matter what the individual PR of the category page is. Thousands sites get a large PR boost on the toolbar as soon as Google updates it's directory with the latest one from dmoz.org.
Submitting a site to DMOZ is free.
 The Google Directory is a damp (made once in a month) of DMOZ. You can easily understand the great importance Google gives to site listed in open directory. Therefore DMOZ is not only the most authoritative inbound link your site can have, but it's also a fundamental gateway for an high google ranking. Obvioulsly it's not a MUST. You can get high rankings even without appearing in this directory, but when you're competing for hot keywords this can increase your chances a lot.
After submitting your site to Dmoz, it may take up to 6 months/1 year before your site is reviewed and ---maybe--- published in certain overcrowded categories. This because Editors receive daily hundreds of requests that come from the online submission form placed in Dmoz website. Once submitted, a site comes reviewed, updated in its descriptions and title and published. This operation can take up to an entire day for sites with large amount of pages/content. Knowing some editors' names and their email (in other words, knowing them directly) and asking them to review your site let save you lot of time.
How to find them? Most editors are SEO or webmasters, so you can easily find contacts in specific forums like webmasterword or whatever (do a search in Google...). By reading posts and messages, you will not only find useful names, but also suggestions and solutions for any html or ranking problem or doubt.
We spent a lot of time to understand how much does a Dmoz listing count for a site's pagerank / ranking / relevance. No doubt it is very important, but we have come to a final opinion: inbound TEXT links from sites that are already listed in Dmoz are MORE IMPORTANT and more relevant than inbound links directly from DMOZ, assuming that those links come from website that have the same themes/topic of your site.
In other words, if your site is not listed in Dmoz in a certain category, but iste
LOOKSMART : www.looksmart.com
LookSmart is a Authoritative General human-edited directory; similar to Yahoo! but with a different approach to pricing: $49 to have your site reviewed and listed, and 15 cents pay-per-click. Looksmart Network includes MSN, ABOUT.com, Netscape, Road Runner, Inktomi, Info Space, Cnet.
If you maintain a non-commercial site or have a site that's almost completely non-commercial you can get into the Looksmart directory through www.Zeal.com. Just like Google obtains results from ODP, Looksmart obtains it's non-commercial listings from the Zeal web directory.
YAHOO: www.yahoo.com
A Yahoo! listing is generally thought to be essential for anyone seriously doing business on the net. Don't submit your site here unless it's solid, usable, and has no broken links. Yahoo! is a directory; every site is reviewed by a human editor and they may choose not to include your site in their listings. If your site is not included, there's no refund :-(((
Pricing: $299 annual fee, price almost doubled if your site is adult related...
2. Topic-Specific Directories: targeted to specific areas of interest such as sports, business, medical issues, adult contents, etc…One example is well known medical directory Achoo.com, which only accepts submissions from health-related sites.
Spend time researching ones that are appropriate. Most of the times submitting your site is free, just be aware that your site must have contents that are listed in directories' directives: if your site is about "gardening" submit it to "gardening" directories.
|
|