There are several differences between the directories and the search engines of the Internet. Here are a few:

• A directory generally organizes sites by categories and subcategories. You choose the category for your listing. Search engines have no categories or organizational structure.
  
  
• When submitting to a directory, you suggest your site to a human operator. The operator may or may not enter your site to the directory. Search engines use an automatic submission, finding your site from links to it from other sites.
  
  
• With a directory, you only submit your site once. You may be able to edit it later, but there is a lot of emphasis on getting it right the first time. With a search engine. your site is entered as soon as the engines see a link to it and the listing is continuously updated.

Does a Directory Listing Help You?

What good does a directory listing do you? Since when have you used a directory to find what you wanted on the Internet? People don't. Then what use is getting listing in a directory? In most cases they give you very little direct traffic.

A directory listing is important for most people with web sites, however. The reason is that a link from a major directory to your site is considered a trusted link. A trusted link helps your position in the search engines. So a listing in a directory generally draws little traffic in itself; but by being considered as trusted it moves you up in the search engines and improves your web traffic to your site from the search engines.

Which Directories are Important?

There are many directories on the Internet, most of them charging a fee to list you. Two directories, however, are considered the most important: Google's DMOZ and Yahoo's Directory.

Google's DMOZ, or the Open Directory Project, is free. The updating is by volunteers, so it can take some time after submission before you will see your listing. The temptation is to put your site there as soon as you start developing it. Don't. Don't submit to the DMOZ until your site is ready. The directory is at http://www.dmoz.com. Work your way down through the categories until you see a site listing. Notice the sites are listed alphabetically.

You can also get to the Google DMOZ directory using http://directory.google.com/. The sites here are the same, but are listed in decreasing PageRank order.

Yahoo's directory is at http://dir.yahoo.com/. This one isn't free - it's $299 a year. And remember this doesn't buy you traffic; it only buys you a trusted link. Unless you are a major corporation, the link may not be worth that to you.

Beyond these two directories, you will find many more on the web, most of them charging a about $25-$40 to list you. Directories that list anything that includes gambling and pharmacy sites can't help you, as they aren't trusted sites. The ones that can help you the most are the niche directories that relate to your topic and are highly specialized.

Judging Directory Quality

How can you know if a particular directory listing can help you? Four basic rules are important here, particularly for good positioning in Google:

Now go to a small directory such as:
http://www.bluefind.com/
Work your way down to a listing page. The page we found has a PageRank of 0. A link from this page isn't going to help you much, if any. Your goal is to build links from directory pages that have good PageRank.

2. The link to your page must be a static link. It cannot be a dynamic link. A dynamic link is one with special characters in it. An example might be:
http://www.mysite.com/index.php?item=menu&color=red&size=med
Some directories use databases use store their entries and then us dynamic linking to access the records. Search engines are not good at reading dynamic links. In the same way, the directory should not use JavaScript links to access your page.

3. You should control your directory entry to make sure this anchor text has your keywords. Indexing for the link is on the keywords in the anchor text in the page linking to you. For example, the directory entry should be a direct link using your keywords such as:
Oregon Professional Microsystems
Targeted search engine positioning for your web site!

4. The directory page with your entry should not be using the nofollow tag on your entry. Here is an example of an entry doing that:
<a href="http://www.mydomain.com" rel="nofollow"> Info on search engine optimization</a>
In addition, the page should not have any meta tag that turns off the indexing of the directory page. The meta tag that turns off the indexing would be:
<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="index,nofollow">

The Local Directories

Finally, the major search engines also maintain local directories that are really online yellow pages. These are useful for people looking for a business in your local area in your category. The Google local directory is at http://www.google.com/lochp. The Yahoo local directory is at http://local.yahoo.com. The MSN local directory is at http://local.msn.com. This listing is generally already done for you, but you should be sure your business is listed and listed correctly in each of these.

Summary

In summary, directories are important in that a good directory can improve your positioning in the search engines. The two major directories are the DMOZ directory and the Yahoo directory. The directory listing should be in a form that the search engines can see and use in improving your position in the organic listings.

For more information on directories, see our SEO book Chapter 14 or contact us for consulting.

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