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The trail to creating an effective world wide web directory is far from a simple undertaking. It calls for a specific amount of devotion to take a internet directory script and rework it into a greatly utilised directory. Online directories consist of a lot more complexities than satisfies the eye, and i have uncovered very first hand which the improvement of your top quality world wide web directory is no stroll while in the park. But a very good world wide web directory is value its body weight in gold, for the two webmasters & internet surfers alike. Let us enter the world of internet directories.

An internet directory acts much like a search engine, but on a much smaller scale. Website directories are essentially a categorized index of websites that have been submitted by website owners. Directories normally have search features, allowing users to search through the entire index, just like a search engine. The main differences between a directory and a search engine is that very few directories consist of the level of links that a search engine does. Search engines also collect data from websites, which is used to categorize and rank them. Directories lack the ability to "crawl", or exam websites as search engines due, therefore the only information a directory contains on a particular website is the information that was submitted by the website owner. Most directories use meta tags and keywords to search for websites, where as search engines use complex algorithms that just take into consideration much extra than meta tags (the value of meta tags in search engines has actually declined). World wide web directories are not the most popular internet search tools because huge search engines like Google and Yahoo are much a lot more convenient to use and have a vast quantity of resources available to be searched. The largest and most popular world wide web directory is the Open Directory Project (DMOZ), whose links are indexed by Google, Yahoo, and the majority of other search engines. Google and Yahoo both of those have their own website directories as well. Though independently owned website directories may not be so popular for internet searchers, they do have their benefits for site owners & surfers alike.

World wide web directories can have several purposes, it all depends on what the administration's intended goals are. Some web directories are purely advertising hot spots, while others focus on driving targeted traffic to the directory. Some directories are free, some paid, others both of those. Directories can have broad topics, or specific topics. Lets start with the different types of world wide web directories.

1st, we have what is commonly referred to as a "niche" directory. Niche directories have a specific topic, or niche, and the links found within the directory reflect that. Examples of a niche would be automotive directories, sports directories, shopping directories, website promotion directories, etc. Niche directories are most beneficial to internet *searchers; they have a specific topic and therefore *surfers and *searchers have a better chance of finding what they want. In a human edited niche directory, you are very unlikely to find spam sites as well.

We will label the next kind of web directory as a "Free for All" directory. Free for all directories have no specific topic. They are very broad in their category selection and links are usually hidden behind several sub-categories. Free for all websites can benefit site owners so long as the "no follow" tag is not applied (page rank increase), however it is in your best interest to avoid free for all directories for several reasons. Using a free for all directory to search for a website is much more likely than not going to require you to sort through heaps of spam. A lot of free for all directories are not human edited due to the massive level of link requests they receive, and websites are not carefully examined before being approved into the directory. The link high quality of some free for all directories is extremely poor. Also, a lot of free for all directories extract data from other directories; how original. No sense in supporting the lack of creativity or devotion in such web directories. 

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Despite a flood of low excellent free for all directories, there are some very good ones available. A well organized, human edited (human edited = higher high quality links) free for all directory is a great place to search for websites. It also serves website owners with increased website exposure and if they are lucky, the directory is indexed by Google and other search engines, therefore improving its ranking on search engine result pages.

One of the most vital SEO campaigns involves submission of websites to popular net directories. It's considered as a great technique to gain superior and authoritative links that can go a long way in improving the search engine ranking for one's website. In other words, submission of websites to a web directory can help site owners optimize their websites, and while in the process improve their chances of making it big during the world of Internet marketing.

As such, website directories have been in place even before the existence of some of the popular search engines. From Internet user's point of view, a web directory is one of the most popular and reliable sources available on the net to seek excellent information. In order to submit a site to an internet directory, a webmaster can visit any popular online directory and feed in the required information such as the website link and description to be included inside the listings of the web directory. Submitting a site is a relatively easy process that barely demands a couple of minutes. The key is to choose the right internet directory in order to gain full advantage from the link submission activity.

The fact that one can seek competitive advantage by submitting one's website to popular web directories, loads of website owners tend to include link submission activity in their SEO campaign. Equally free and paid directories exist today. While at the face of it, free directory submission might appear to be an alluring option, the fact of the matter is that there are specified drawbacks associated with free directory submission. Experienced site owners are well aware of the fact that paid directory submission is the way to go in order to enjoy long term benefits from link submission campaigns. There are many other solid reasons to submit sites to a paid directory. Let's have a detailed look at them.