Distinctive Traits of a Quality Web Directory

One of the most common questions when it comes to Web Directories is, “Which ones should I submit to?” or “How do I tell which are the Quality Directories?”

There is really no simple answer to this question.  There are many traits that need to be taken into consideration when you are looking for a Quality Directory to submit your website to and next we will cover those traits in more detail.

The first set of traits will help you to determine how serious the directory owner is about establishing and promoting a quality directory resource.

Unique Design - The first thing that you will notice when you visit a directory will be your first indication of the quality of the site.  Does the directory have a design that is unique?  Is it the same design that you have already seen ten times on other directories today? 

• A unique design will tell you that the owner has made an investment into the directory by actually hiring a designer or taking the time and developing a unique template. This is one item that can tell you if the owner is serious about promoting and developing the site.
• A quick way to tell a unique design in most cases is by looking at the footer. Look for links in the footer that are identified by the words “sponsored by” or “designed by” followed by a link to another site. Any links in the footer to a different site than the one you’re on indicates that the site was cheaply built by using free templates which were sponsored by other sites.

Directory Features - Additional traits of a Quality Directory are the features that it offers.  Look for features that indicate there have been additions to the directory.  Some of those features with examples are a directory blog, deep links, sections designed for visitor use such as a Gallery of Art, multiple review options and informative details pages.

• Indexing Enhancements - Examples of enhancements for purposes of indexing can be seen on this details page. Notice the tag cloud and popular listings in category areas that are there to help visitors and search robots find pages and index them quickly within the site. Also take note of the social bookmarking features on the details page that allows it to be easily submitted to various popular social bookmarking services.
• SEO Enhancements - Take a look at the URL on that same details page. See how it has the directory name first, then the listing title? Those are SEO friendly URL’s that allow the search engines to better identify the content of the pages.

Unique Content - You should check through the directory for any content unique to the website such as unique and well written articles or blog posts.  Unique site content is valued by the search engines.  They will typically give more weight to sites that have unique site content and visit more often.

Unique Category Structures - After you have been through the process of submitting to a few hundred different directories you begin to notice something.  A lot of those directories seem to have the same category structure.  Those are called a category dumps and the easy way out when building a directory.  The problem with directories that use category dumps is that they look too similar to search engines.  To get maximum benefits from directories they should have a unique category structure.

Directory Listings - The directory listings themselves can give you insight into the editorial standards of the directory. 

• Titles and Descriptions - These should both be relevant and descriptive of the listed site and not just a string of keywords or excessive sales hype. If these appear “spammy” it could be an indication of a sub-par editorial review process.
• Properly Categorized Listings - If the directory listings are not properly categorized within the directories category structure, that could also be an indication of sub-par editorial standards.
• Lack of Empty Categories - in my opinion, directories should be built to create a quality online resource for the visitor. What a quality resource means to me is there should be unique articles and information. It also means links to other quality online resources in the form of listings. When a visitor goes to a particular category looking for information, there should be a resource waiting for them. A quality directory should have minimal empty categories.

Additional traits to consider for a Quality Directory

Family Friendly - Not all directories are family friendly and that is all right.  There are many good directories that allow for adult content.  The thing is that there are many directories that say they are family friendly and when you actually search through their listings you may be shocked by what you find.  If a directory states that it is family friendly, take a look through its listings and see what you find there.  If you find any listings to porn or gambling, you may want to take that into consideration.  If the directory is not following its own guidelines, that is a sign of poor editing.

Backlinks - Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and enter the web address for the directory to check the backlinks.  There should be a mix of quality and quantity of backlinks to the directory.

Check the Cache Date - Ensure that the page that your listing will appear on is cached.  The most recent cache date should not be several months old either. 

Check the Search Engine Rankings - One thing that I like to follow is where the listing of a site ranks in relation to the actual site in the serps.  What I mean is that I will take a site that is listed in my directory and do a Google search for the domain.  For example “yourdomain.com” without the quotes.  The first result is usually the site itself, but what I like to know is where the listing for that site on my directory ranks.

Alexa Rankings - After studying this carefully, Alexa is unreliable and does not accurately measure traffic to any but the very top ranked sites.  It is driven way to heavily by social bookmarking to give any trust to it.  The most accurate measures of traffic are based on the sites servers and even those can vary greatly.  If you have questions on traffic contact the directory owner and ask for recent traffic.

Check to see if the Site is Banned - Go to iWebtools banned site checker and enter the web address.  It will tell you if the directory has been banned by Google.  If a directory is banned it means that it is no longer being indexed by Google and is not benefiting your site for searches in that search engine.  Just remember even though Google is the dominant search engine, there are other search engines.

What You Will Not See On a Quality Directory

• There are also some distinctive characteristics that you will not see on a quality directory which include site-wide sponsored links (may be located in sidebar or footers).

Conclusion

These guidelines should help you in determining a good strategy for directory submissions.  Submitting to low quality directories is not always the best use of your time or resources.  Using these guidelines can help you in distinguishing quality directories from those of lesser quality and aid you in putting together your directory list of favorites.