A web directory, put simply, is an extensive collection of web addresses that are sorted into different groups of topics or categories. These web directories contain links to other websites. Web directories are most commonly maintained by human as opposed to automated software applications.

How does it work you may ask? For example, you, as the owner of a website will typically seek out good quality web directories that contain categories that are relevant to your site contents and submit your website information as well as your website address to these web directories for approval. The owner of the web directories, a real human, will review the details submitted and make all editorial decisions on whether to accept or decline these website addresses. If approved, they will then file these web addresses (URLs) or links that you have submitted into the different categories available.

Most website owners submit their website address to the different web directories to maximise their exposure on the internet. This will in turn help them reach out to more people and effectively generating more traffic to their website through search engines. Some web directories are free but many paid web directories out there do charge website owners a fee for publishing their website address on these web directories. The fee increases in accordance with the popularity of the web directory. A combination of factors such as high traffic to the web directory and a high page rank will attract a higher fee. In order to boost your traffic you can either submit your website details to these web directories manually yourself or you can choose to have someone do it for you for a fee.

There are many online outfits who can submit your website details to hundreds of website directories quickly and at a reasonable price which frees up your time to focus on other advertising campaigns in the promotion of your website. Some may wonder if there is a leading directory or the best web directory out there – certainly there are the more popular and widely known web directories such as Yahoo! Directory, LookSmart and The Open Directory which has been around since 1999 and is a human-edited web directory. However it is not recommended that you stop with these 3 top choices as there are a plethora of other web directories on the internet to choose from and there is no harm in adding your website link to these directories.

The key is to find those web directories that are similar in theme or content to what your website is about. For instance you would not want to submit your website address (which is all about the latest web technology) to a web directory (which offers categories that revolve around pet ownership, breeding and animal welfare). This would be a total mismatch of content relevance which will have an adverse effect on the traffic you want to generate to your website. So do your research and filter out those web directories that are applicable to your website before signing up. Associating your website with these web directories does take time but as you build more links to your website, the pay off comes in the form of increased traffic and popularity of your website which makes the whole process a worthwhile exercise.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 10th, 2007 at 7:28 am and is filed under Directories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.