Directories might be of interest to owners of new sites because its a free and easy way to get links. But if its so free and so good, why do so many people often shy away from this? There’s actually some valid reasons.

My biggest gripe with web directories is that the links aren’t coming from related domain names. We all know that Google and most other search engines value links coming from related sites the most. Furthermore, most web directories are general link directories that don’t target a single niche. So it might be very hard to find a link directory related to the niche you are targeting.

What’s more is that these directories already have thousands of outgoing links. There is no way that a considerable amount of page rank will be transferred to your domain. Also, nowadays Google is trying to limit the amount of spam across the web. Some directories might be considered as “spammy” by Google because they have all links and no content.

Below is a video blog that Shoemoney.com did related to the question: “Are web directories worth the submission?”

With all this being said, is it actually worth it to submit to web directories? I’m gonna vote “YES.” I say this because EVERY LINK COUNTS, even PR 0s. Afterall, getting an unrelated link is better than no link at all. Just don’t expect to be an overnight success if you submit your site to a lot of directories. It will take time for the links to build up and for the search engines to accept the links.

But what directories should you submit to? Like I said before, the more the better. If you are just starting out though, I would go for getting an inclusion in the biggest directories: DMOZ, Yahoo, and MSN. After that, I would recommend to just submit to every single directory imaginable. (Submit to around 50 per day… chances are only about 50% will accept you. If you get too many new incoming links per day, you might get penalized by search engines.) If you are curious about which directories you should submit to, why not do a google search?