At first glance web directories seem to be somewhat of anomaly, a quick search will show thousands of them exist on the internet; yet very few people appear to actually use them. This article is going to look at what web directories are and investigate why so many of them seem to exist despite the fact that internet users very rarely use them.
Web directories are websites that maintain lists of inks to websites arranged by topic that visitors are usually able to either search or navigate through. Typically web users are able to submit website links to a directory in order to have it listed. The major web directories are all human edited. This means that after a user submits a site to be considered for inclusion a member of staff will personally look at the website in order to verify that it is of a high quality, and appropriate to the section of the directory it has been submitted to. If the staff member decides that the site is appropriate and of a high enough level of quality a link to the website will be placed on the directory (usually alongside a brief description of the website). The idea behind this is that users will be able to browse through quality sites in one location. In the mid 1990’s, when the internet was beginning to take off, some of the main directories were a source of traffic for websites. Over the last 15 years however users have become far more reliant on search engines which provide results with far less effort on the user’s part.
Despite the fact that search engines have stolen virtually all of the traffic from web directories there appear to be more of them online than ever. The search engines are actually the reason that directories continue to thrive. Website owners became aware early on that as more and more users utilised search engines that the higher they were able to appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs) the more traffic they would achieve. This gave birth to the search engine optimisation (SEO) industry which specialised in learning how search engines ranked websites and figuring out how they could optimise websites to rank well. The main search engines view links pointing towards a website like a vote for their authority, therefore sites with a lot of links tend to rank highly. Web directories then became an easy place for site owners to get links pointing back to their websites thus helping them rank higher. Nowadays directories exist solely to help boost search engine results.
If you run a website you could see great benefit in submitting your site to an
SEO web directory. It can also be worthwhile joining an
SEO forum to learn more about optimisation.
There is a lot of debate these days over how valuable directories will continue to prove. There is no doubt that directories have decreased the value of directory results somewhat. However they are still undoubtedly of some use and are a resource that should never be completely ignored.
