When you are evaluating the best directories there are several factors which need to be taken into account. First look at the directories commitment to maintain quality content and strength within the industry. Look for the leaders that are committed to making your online presence stronger. A good resource for evaluating the top directories can be found in the article
Distinctive Traits of a Quality Directory.
Another basis for establishing a directory’s standings is something that has been dubbed the Authority Status.
Wikipedia defines
Authority Site as “
a term the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) community coined to refer to a website that dominates search results for a specific topic. These sites have substantial topic-specific content, linked to by a large number of other websites. Google or any other search engine doesn't appear to have formally recognized this term.”
So what makes an Authority Site? As Wikipedia states the first sign of an Authority Site is a content rich resouce. That being a site that has quality content pertaining to the industry which people find valuable. Many times other websites will also find the content valuable and refer to it in links. Search engines feed on these content rich websites.
Authority Sites will generally have links from other Authority Sites as well, helping to establish that Authority status. Search engines generally give more weight to the incoming links from Authority Sites especially if the sites have related categories or content.
How do you tell an Authority Site? This is a highly debated topic. Some feel you can tell and Authority Site by how it shows up in search results. Those that feel you can spot them this way say depending on the search term used, an Authority Site will show up with several sub links beneath the main link returned for the search called site links. You can see an example of site links
here.
Google’s official definition of site links is: “Sitelinks are additional links Google sometimes generates from site contents in order to help users navigate your site. Google generates these sitelinks periodically from your site's contents.” At no point have I ever seen Google refer to site links as a sign of the Authority Status of a site, but Google is pretty secretive about its ranking methods and that does not mean it is not one of the criteria.
Personally I think that site links may be a way that Google recognizes sites which offer quality content within a niche, but there are more factors that actually determine the Authority Status of a website. When looking for directories refer to Distinctive Traits of a Quality Directory and the following lists.
Within the Authority Directory we maintain a list of Directories that we feel are of the highest quality.
The directories listed in our directory category consist of directories which have been submitted by their owners for consideration and additional directories that we have added as editors to provide resources for our visitors. It does not matter if the site submitted itself for consideration or an editor added the directory there, we hold all directories listed to the highest of standards. If we don't feel a directory deserves to be listed we don't list them.
Much of what we look for when reviewing directories can be be found in the article Distinctive Traits of a Quality Directory.
We review and break down directories into their most relevant categories. These lists can be found in our directories category.
No matter the category you find a directory listed in you can rest easy that they have been reviewed by the staff of the Authority Directory and found to be a quality resource of value to our visitors.
Another common question, what is the difference between a paid directory and a free directory submission. The differences are significant. A link in one quality, well promoted paid directory can be worth about the same as 100 free directories. Free directories also receive a massive volume of submissions so approval times with them can take up to a year. That is unless the owner of the free directory just approves all submissions en mass. By approving all submissions without review could result in a bad outcome for your site by it being promoted along side a bunch of spam or non family friendly sites. That being said there are a few really good free directories such as DMOZ.
The thing with good free directories is you have to get in them early before they turn into paid directories. That means that you have to sort through hundreds to find that diamond in the rough that will turn into a quality (and likely paid) directory someday. There is no sure fire way of telling so the common practice for finding them is to submit to all of them and hope. One last factor is that free directories are often very crowded which diminishes the value of having a link there.
