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The Benefits of Web Directories
Webmasters and site administrators looking to spread the news about their web sites can share links to their sites with web directories. The directories are monitored by human editors, who comb through the sites submitted to determine the content and quality of submissions before they approve and list them.
TYPES OF WEB DIRECTORIES:
General - General web directories consist of lots of different categories that can be divided up into smaller categories. They will usually include many different kinds of sites, such as business, health, and computers, and are often very large, with new categories being added as new sites are included.
Niche - Niche directories are specialized, leading to them being called specialty directories. They cater to only one category of web sites, including sites for products, services, or a specific theme. This kind of directory can be more useful and less overwhelming than a general directory because there is less information to sort through to get to what you need.
Paid - A paid directory is one that charges a fee in order to review the web site in question and to place it on the directory. There is no guarantee that your web site will be placed on the directory even once your fee is paid, and there are no refunds if it is not. Other paid directories will include any site that pays the fees, which many webmasters prefer because of the speed of inclusion.
Reciprocal - If two websites create a mutual linkage in order to increase traffic between them, then they have set up what is known as a reciprocal directory. These directories require that anyone submitting a site must first place the link for the directory on their site. This does not necessarily guarantee acceptance, however, and some directories are less than legit, adding your site and then secretly removing it later.
Free - Free directories do not require a fee or a back-link, but approval process can take a long time, as the higher the page ranking of the directory, the more traffic and therefore more submissions they get. These can take time to become effective, however they are very useful in that they:
- Provide your web site with incoming links, reciprocal links, or a combination of the two, increasing your page's ranking
- Allowing your site to become indexed by the spiders sent out by search engines
- Driving targeted traffic to your web site - visitors will already know that they are getting the right information because of the directory
- Get higher rankings for your targeted keywords
- Help you to increase your page ranks
The higher the page rank of the directory you are submitting to, the more people will see your site and click on your link. Page rank should not be the only factor determining which directories you use, however it is still an important factor. Others include the quality of the other sites, content, and back links. If you were to ignore every page that had no ranking so far, no new web site would ever gain an audience, including your own.
Watch out for:
- 'No follow' tags that prevent search engines from following your link
- Use of redirects
- Removal of reciprocal links to boost their own incoming links
- Embedded links that search engines cannot follow, like links in Java
Keep all this in mind when submitting to web directories, and you will have a great flow of traffic in no time.
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