I’ve seens lots of people asking What are web directories? What is the use of them?, so I thought to write a short article about Web Directories.
A web directory is an online index of the websites. It organizes the websites by topics, categories and subcategories. The web directories are usually maintained by the human beings. The web directories allow the webmasters and site owners to submit their websites for review and inclusion.

Most of the web directories are general in scope and they accept the websites across a wide range of categories and subcategories including computer, fashion, entertainment, finance, shopping, e-commerce, health, beauty, travel, real estate, news and many more categories.

Some of the most popular web directories are Yahoo directory, DMOZ and best of the web etc. The directory submission helps the websites in the following two ways.

Incoming Links

Listing your website in the relevant categories of the web directories result in generating a back links to your website. The back links from the web directories are really helpful in increasing the PR and ranking of your website in the search engines. Directory submission is one of the major factors in the off-page optimization process.

Traffic & Website Promotion

Another benefit of the directory submission is the promotion of your website. In the web directories, the websites are arranged categorically and it is very easier for the users to reach a website in a directory, unlike the search engines in which the websites are not arranged categorically.

There are different types of the web directories based on the inclusion.
• Free Submissions
In the free inclusion, there are no charges for review and inclusion.
• Paid Submissions
In the paid submissions, the site owners have to pay a fee for review and inclusion.
Reciprocal Link
In the Reciprocal inclusions, a link back to the web directory is required in order to get listed in web directory.
• No Follow
In this type of inclusion there is a rel=”nofollow” attribute associated with the link. Search engines do not follow the “nofollow” links.
• Featured Links
In the featured inclusions, the link is given a premium position in the directory normally at the top of the page.

How Web Directories Can Help You

There are so many factors that search engines use to rank a website. The process of search engine optimization is mainly divided into the following two types.

On-Page Optimization

It includes using the unique Title, Meta tags, H1 heading, Image ALT tag, inner linking and content optimization.

Off-Page Optimization

The off-page optimization mainly includes getting the back links from high PR and relevant websites and directory submission is one of the most important ways to get back links to your websites.

With little research on internet you can find a lot of free web directories. The regular and consistent inclusion of your website in the web directories results in improving the PR and ranking of your website in the search engines.

Before submitting your website in the web directories, you need to carefully follow the guidelines of the web directories. If you do not follow the guidelines then your website will be banned or permanently removed from the web directories.

One important thing that you must know is that you not only need to submit the home page of your website but also inner pages of your website in the web directories.

The back links from the web directories also help your web pages get out of the supplemental index of Google. Supplemental index is just like a recycle bin and Google put the orphan pages in the supplemental index.

The pages in the Google’s supplemental index do not generate any traffic. The directory submission is the best way to get your pages out of it.

The search engine spiders send out the spiders to the links in the directory pages. This will make the search engine spiders to visit your website and add your website’s pages in the search engines

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