What are Web Directories?

For many of us trying to remember various web site addresses can be a challenge or maybe you don’t know what web address you are after. It was for this reason that search engines were brought about to make it easier for us to find what we need on the Internet.

Search engines however no longer remain the only way of finding a specific web address. We are seeing an ever growing convenience in the form of web directories. A web directory is a place used to list web site addresses. They specialise in linking to web sites and categorising links. A web directory is not a search engine, it doesn’t display web sites based on a keyword search; a web directory lists sites by category.

An example of a well established web directory is Yahoo! Directory. There are thousands of directories available to you across the Internet. Most of these directories are broad and cover varies subject areas, meaning you can get web site addresses for pretty much any topic that you need them on. There are also smaller directories available across the Internet; these directories are known as niche directories, meaning that they specialise in a specific area of interest such as computer technology. Although these directories are smaller they will provide you with more specialist links that you would probably otherwise not found.

Although the general look of a web directory isn’t of great importance as long as the links are working correctly you can come across some directories that are better established. These are the type of directories that you will probably find most helpful as they will provide you with more information than just a web link. On these you will find a page dedicated to a web link and on this page you will find information about the site as well as screen shots of the web site. This will ultimately prove to be of great help to you when you are looking for a specialist website as it will save you time due to the fact you won’t have to open numerous web pages until you find a site that you want as you will be able to preview the site before hand.

Also if you have an established website and you want to bring in some more traffic you can submit your website to a web directory site in order for it to be placed on the web directory. Your site will then be checked to ensure the content is of valid information and in order for it to be categorised.

Another form of a web directory are article directories. These are sites that are built for the purpose of people submitting their articles to them for free in order to get their work seen by others or as a way of marketing a website for SEO purposes. These article directories contain large amounts of useful content which is free to use by anyone. Many website owners use these articles as a way of increasing the keywords of their websites in SEO terms.

Helen is the web master of Article Alley, specialists in all of your Article Directory needs.

HR Web Directory

http://www.hrwebdir.org/dir646.htm an interesting little directory with a scoring system - I posted article alley and we scored 7/10 which I am happy with.

A

Link for ever

http://www.linkforever.net/Internet/Directories/Article_Directories/
A good directory for a change - really like the look and feel of this one - so posted articlealley and accidentconsult there.

A

New directory

http://www.freeinclusion.com using the www.directorygeneral.com style script.

A

Business Directory

http://www.business-directory-uk.co.uk/law.htm could be good for www.goinglegal.com ?

A

Duker

http://www.dukersearch.com/

Another possible candidate.

A

http://www.addurldirectory.com/ - lists sites wanting link exchanges

http://www.greatnexus.com/forums/about2458.html a good post worth looking at more carefully.

A

Earthlook

http://www.earthlook.com/suggest.php?action=addlink&catid=384 another potential one for the list.

Adrian

r-tt

http://directory.r-tt.com/Submit_URL/Reciprocal_Link/

Looks to be worth the recip link

Indexplex DMOZ submission

Indexplex was submitted to http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/

Adrian

Indexplex DMOZ submission

http://dmoz.org/Computers/Internet/Searching/Directories/

Business Web Directories

Business Web Directories

Author: Adrian Lawrence

Business Web DirectoriesAn important tool in organizing and presenting the plethora of websites available on the internet is the use of Directories – an alternative to Search Engines that links and categorizes sites on the web. The main advantage to Directories as opposed to Search Engines is that directories are edited by humans, whereas search engines simply return automated results based on keywords which may not always be the most effective way to quickly find a website that is apropos to the topic being searched for. Websites are submitted to directories by the webmaster, where they are reviewed by neutral editors, evaluated, sorted into categories, and ranked within category according to relevance. They are then listed in a directory form that is simple to read and navigate for the average browser. For a website to create and maintain high web visibility – and therefore attract a high number of visitors – it is essential to be listed in a number of quality Directories.

The best known directories are Yahoo, Dmoz and Google, but it is worth being aware of the quality of the directory before submitting a site. The average browser will not explore beyond the second or, at most, third page of directory results for their searched for topic, but if the Directory is not of quality some websites listed in those all-important first few pages may not deserve to be there. The usefulness of Directories to return appropriate search results to be valuable to a site is under debate.If links are being sold across the entire site, that may be indication of a lower quality Directory. Google is one of the worst culprits for targeting sites that sell links, and sites that appear to promote the Google page rank of their pages. This may not be indicative of how relevant a site is to the topic searched for – it is all too easy for crafty webmasters to manipulate keyword SEO to gain a higher Google page rank than their site deserves.

This is time-wasting and frustrating for browsers, and may result in them losing patience with the Directory all together. Another common problem with Directories to be avoided is that pages within the site may be linked only internally and not to other, relevant, quality, external pages. Search Engines will not find such pages if they are low on keyword content and they will be skipped over entirely.Dmoz, the Open Directory Project (ODP,) editors are volunteers – they are naturally third-party neutral and will review and consider each submitted website on its own merits. Each editor applicant is screened for any conflict of interest, so any search results returned by Dmoz Directories can generally be trusted. The main downside to submitting a website to Dmoz is that the submission process can be interminable – although ultimately worth it in terms of relevant traffic directed to any website included in their directory.

The Yahoo! Directory rivals Dmoz for size and comprehensiveness, and was in fact Yahoo’s initial reason for existence. It has since evolved away from the fundamental classic human edited format of Directories, by instituting crawler-based listings in 2002, but remains a quality Directory that can be trusted. The Yahoo! Directory is very clearly displayed on its homepage. LookSmart, and Zeal – LookSmart’s non commercial arm – are other famous examples of quality directories.For a website to be listed in a trustworthy Directory such as Dmoz or Yahoo! can be one of the most important quality-assurance seals of approval and can be the essential difference between focused and relevant traffic to the site and random hits by frustrated browsers.

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Adrian Lawrence is the webmaster of Allthebizz a very popular business web directory covering a wide range of topics
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Article Source: http://www.articlealley.com