Importance of Web Directories

Do you know the importance of the Web Directory

There are many Web directories in the internet, General, Niche, Paid or Free and you might be wondering what are the importance and uses of these directories? Well, aside from the service of providing a list of categorized quality Web sites, Web directories also provide other very useful services. This includes promoting and improving the ranking of your Web site/s with Search Engines (SEs), increasing the chances of your Web site/s landing at the top of search results (SERP) and  helping improve the Internet as a whole in the long run.

Help New Websites Get Indexed Faster by Search Engines

If a Web site is new, submitting it to established Web Directories (those who have already been indexed and ranked) will help your Web site get indexed faster by Search Engines (SEs). SEs crawl or spider the Internet at a very fast rate 24/7. They are consistently looking for new, useful and relevant content, hyperlinks or backlinks, new Web sites and finding any changes on any indexed Web pages that would affect SERP. When SEs find the Web page in the Directory where your listing is placed your backlink will be the SEs guide in locating and indexing your Web site.

Some might argue that submitting your Web site's url to SEs is enough to be crawled and indexed, I won't argue with that it's a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) actually and I will also recommend submitting your new Web site's url to SEs. But with the numerous urls' being submitted daily it will take time before SEs can come and visit your Web site. On the other hand, if your Web site's link is crawled and found in established Web sites, crawling and indexing of your Web site will be a lot easier and faster. In my experience some of my Web sites have been indexed a lot faster just by acquiring backlinks from Web Directories.

Provide List of Quality Websites

If you are new in link building and Web site promotion and are planning to acquire backlinks from Web Directories, you should know that human edited Web Directories do not accept and list all Web sites submitted to them. Submitted Web sites will undergo a process called editorial review (human intervention) and only quality Web sites which are and will be beneficial to internet users shall be accepted and listed. This is true even for paid web directories, paid submission will never guarantee the acceptance of a Web site. Web Directories each have their own submission guidelines and following them will increase the chances of getting listed.

So if you are planning to use the services of Web Directories by being listed and by acquiring quality backlinks (general, or niche like a blog directory, a paid or a free web directory,) make sure your Web site is in compliance with their submission guidelines to increase your chances of getting listed and most importantly the quality of your Web site is what matters most.

Provide Quality Backlinks

Links in the Web are not all equal in value, Google has made many changes in its algorithm in the computation of its PR as the years have gone by.  Not only does the PR of a source Web page is used in determining or calculating the PR of other Web sites, the source of the link (type and kind of Web site) and other factors (no longer announced publicly) is also considered. Acquiring a link from a reputable Web Directory is not an easy one, again it's the quality and usefulness of your Web site that will be the deciding factor if it will be accepted or not at the end. So a link coming from a Web directory will count and weigh more in the eyes of SEs specially Google than a link acquired from, let's say, a Forum which is much easier to acquire. 

Backlinks are very essential to SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and it is used by Google to calculate the PR of Web pages and PR is one of the basis used by Google on who it will list at the top search results. Web directories provide this quality backlink that will help promote your Web site and provide you with organic traffic thus increasing visitors, sales, ROI, readers, customers, etc.

Provide Referral Traffic

Directory listing provided by Web Directories are categorized and sub-categorized by topics. This in return will easily help internet users to search for the kind of Web sites that they need.  When internet users find or locate your Web site in the listing and visit them through the links placed in Web Directories this is called referral traffic. Simply stated, referral traffic is a visit referred by another Web site, usually by clicking the link placed on the referring site. This again is provided by Web directories, although traffic coming from Web directories is not that much due to the fact that internet users nowadays are using SEs in locating Web sites with ease. Now the traffic brought by SEs is called organic traffic and the good news is Web directories again help your Web site by increasing organic traffic which will be discussed later.

Provide Organic Traffic of Web Sites (Increase SERP)

This is a controversial issue, many are saying that PageRank (PR) does not affect the Web sites' place in (search engine results page) SERP but instead the relevance of keywords used will be the one to rule out if your Web page will be on top of SERP. But reviewing the corporate technology of Google, there are two ways on how to get listed at the tops of search results. First by the measure of a Website's PR and secondly by Hypertext Matching Analysis (keywords) as quoted below:

"PageRank Technology:

PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results." Read full article Google Corporate Technology.

There are many uses of backlinks, aside from providing your Web sites with referral traffic it also provides organic traffic. Organic traffic is brought by SEs and can be considered free advertising. To be at the top page of search results is what Webmasters are gunning for and as mentioned above, increasing your PR will help you increase your SERP. It is very common nowadays that people only look at the Web sites listed on the first page of search results and if your Web site is presented, the chances of being visited is increased.

Backlinks are used by SEs in knowing the popularity of a Web site at the same they are also used for ranking purposes. The more quality backlinks your Web site acquires, the more it becomes favorable in the eyes of SEs. But not all links have the same value, SEs have each their own algorithm in valuing links and computing the rank of Web pages. Each link going to your site is evaluated and weighted based on their source and the type of Web site they are coming from. This will be one of the basis of SEs on who will they list on the top of search results when someone searches in the Internet. Now only SEs know this process as algorithms are no longer made known to the public.

Overall Web Directories Help Improve the Internet

By what we have discussed above, we can say that Web directories have their share in helping improve the internet and this of course will not be possible without those quality and useful Web sites being put up. To provide a list of quality Web sites, Web directories do not rely on submission alone, editors or owners of Web directories add to their listing quality and useful Web sites they would search, discover and find in the Internet, from SEs and other Web directories as well that would greatly benefit Internet users.

Many say that Web directories are no longer as useful as they used to be, especially in providing quality backlinks. We should always keep in mind that SEs (specially Google) can make that judgment. One of the largest Directory in the Web is owned by Yahoo.com a search engine and Dmoz.org, a respected directory is supported by Google another search engine, this alone will suffice to say that Web Directories are still doing their job.

So whenever you think or see a reputable Web Directory in the internet always keep in mind their importance and usefulness. Now that you know the importance and usefulness of Web directories, increase your chances of acceptance by reading this article -

How to Submit Your Website to Web Directories

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