Achieving good
search engine visibility has become a necessity for every website today. Hundreds and thousands of businesses compete with one another in order to generate more and more business through their websites.
There are many ways by which a website can get high rankings in major search engines. One such important method is
directory submission. Directory submission involves submitting a particular website in general and relevant web directories. Once a website is submitted it takes anywhere between 1 day to 3 months for the website link to be added into the directory.
Some of the popular web
directories includes http://Dmoz.org,
Yahoo directory etc.
Each directory organizes its contents by categories where all the related websites get listed. To ensure that your site gets added into the directory, one must submit it in the most appropriate category otherwise it can be rejected. A website once listed gets a one way link from the directory.
This free link helps the listed site in a lot of ways. Firstly, it provides a way for search engine spiders (also known as crawlers) to find the website and index it in their own database. As soon as a site is hosted, it must be submitted in web directories so that search engine robots can crawl it. Since these robots visit directories more often than other sites, probability remains high that your site will be indexed soon. You as the owner of the site does not have to submit your site to search engines, instead they themselves come and find your site. Thus, it helps in saving a webmaster’s time.
Indexing is crucial for every website that wish to achieve high rankings since it’s the first step for any site to ensure visibility in search engines. Secondly, a directory placement provides the extra benefit of getting relevant traffic to your website. Since people who are actively looking for new websites and portals often visit these web directories, chances remain high that such people may also visit your site and thus provide your site free traffic.
This traffic is important since it’s highly pertinent. These people might also turn out to be your customers, which will boost your sales in the long run. The most significant benefit of directory submission is increasing your link popularity, which simply is a measure of the quality and quantity of incoming links to your site.
Search
engines like Google, yahoo and msn provides a lot of importance to links while evaluating the rankings of a site for a particular keyword. Google for example takes into account the PR (Page Rank) of the page along with the anchor text of the link while deciding the rankings for a keyword. Gaining incoming links from high PR directories is considered an essential activity of search engine optimization (SEO). In essence, directory submission is a central part of any SEO effort. Without submitting a site in relevant directories, one cannot hope to garner high rankings in search engines. Thus, one must definitely go for directory submissions since the time and effort is worth it.
Posted by ubong at 06:23 0 comments
Web directories
Web directories
What is a web directory?A web directory is a human-compiled index of
sites placed on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links. A web directory doesn''t work like a search engine which displays lists of web pages based on keywords. In terms of the number of indexed pages it cannot be compared with the automatic web browser like Google, but information included in it is properly described and thematically categorized. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site, rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only one or two categories. Before a site is placed in the index, it is reviewed by an editor which means that getting listedin a directory may be often quite difficult. Consequently, having a listing in a directory will guarantee the owner a good amount of well-targeted visitors. Most search engines will rank a site higher if they find it in one of the most popular directories.
Major directories
The following directories are considered as very general in scope and list websites across a wide range of categories, regions and languages. Examples of the best known general directories include:
Yahoo! Directory is one of the most famous sites on the Internet. The directory was Yahoo!''s first offering. It is the largest human-compiled directory in existence, and now has over 1 million sites indexed. Yahoo is now one of the oldest major directories, having been around since 1994, close to the beginning of the web itself. As well as its own index of sites, Yahoo search results pages also include webpages from a search engine''s index. When Yahoo! changed to crawler-based listings for its main results in October 2002, the human-edited directory''s significance dropped, but it is still being updated. The Yahoo! Directory offers two submission options: "Standard", which is free, and "Yahoo! Express" , which involves a submission fee.
The Open Directory is another human-compiled directory (also known as dmoz from directory.mozilla.org, its original domain name) owned by Netscape, significant due to its extensive categorization but one where any Internet user can become an editor and be responsible for some part of the index. Because of its large number of listings and free availability for use by other directories and search engines, many other services use Open Directory content, including Google, Netscape, Lycos, AOL search, AltaVista and HotBot. It has to be said that many sites violate its terms of use by using its content without acknowledgement.
World Wide Web Virtual Library (VLIB) - The oldest directory of the Web. It still operates as a directory of e-texts and information sources on the web. It was started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of HTML and the Web itself, in 1991. Unlike commercial index sites, it is run by a loose confederation of volunteers, who compile pages of key links for particular areas in which they are expert. It is sometimes informally referred to as the "WWWVL", the "Virtual Library" or just "the VL".
Ansearch Directory focuses on the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand. Ansearch''s directory is a combination of human edited and automation. Websites that appear in the Directory are added based on website popularity, which is measured across all Ansearch owned search brands. The Ansearch.com.au search engines main point of difference with its competitors is to deliver spam free search. In this, the engine only returns domain names/home pages in the search engine results pages if the websites are available in the database, providing cleaner listings/results.
Best of the Web Directory is a commercial web directory providing content rich, well-designed websites categorized topically and regionally. In 2002 BOTW transformed into a general web directory, providing users with a spam-free categorization of websites. Currently employing more than 70 paid editors, they look for sites with original content, also considering user-friendliness and web standards.
Other good directories
Apart from general directories there are also a large number of niche directories, which focus on restricted regions, single languages, or specialist sectors. While smaller directories that focus on a specific niche market might generate less traffic, the quality of the traffic from a niche site is usually highly targeted and will be superior to that generated from general search engines. Those are:
Business.com - Business directory which charges a fee for review and operates as a Pay per click search engine. The Business.com directory index, developed by a group of industry experts and library scientists
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