Chapter 13

Submitting to the Directories

In This Chapter

Knowing why search directories are important

Submitting to the top search directories

Finding specialized directories

Locating second-tier directories

In Chapter 12, you look at getting your site into the search engines. In this chapter, you look at getting your site into the search directories. Submitting to directories can be a great way to get links.

The two major directories are important to a search strategy, although they can be rather frustrating to work with. (One of them you have to pay for, and the other, although free, is incredibly difficult to get into.) Also, you may find lots of other, smaller directories you may want to register with.

Pitting Search Directories Against Search Engines

Before you start working with directories, it’s helpful to know a few basics about what directories are — and aren’t:

Directories don’t send searchbots out onto the Web looking for sites to add (though they may send bots out to make sure that the sites are still live).

Directories don’t read and store information from Web pages within a site.

Because directories don’t read and store information, they don’t base search results on the contents of the Web pages.

Directories don’t index Web pages; they index Web sites. Each site is assigned to a particular category. Within the categories, the directory’s index contains just a little information about each site — not much more than a URL, a title, and a description. The result is a categorized list of Web sites — and that’s really what the search directories are all about.

A few years ago, Yahoo! was based around its directory. In fact, Figure 13-1 shows an example of what Yahoo! looked like early in 1998 (courtesy of a wonderful service called the WayBackMachine at www.archive.org). The idea behind Yahoo! was a categorized directory of Web sites that people could browse. You could click links to drill down through the directory and find what you needed, similar to flipping through a Yellow Pages directory. Although you could use the Search box to peruse categories, site titles, and site descriptions, the tool was nothing like the Yahoo! search index of today, which can hunt for your term in billions of Web pages.

But Yahoo! made an enormous mistake. In fact, the image in Figure 13-1 is from a time when Yahoo! was at its peak, a time when most of the world’s Web searches were carried out through its site — just a few months before Google began operations. Yahoo! evidently hadn’t fully realized the weaknesses of the directory system until it was too late. These weaknesses include the following:

Directories provide no way for someone to search individual pages within a site. The perfect fit for your information needs may be sitting somewhere on a site that is included in a directory, but you won’t know it because the directory doesn’t index individual pages.

Categorization is necessarily limited. Sites are rarely about a single topic; even if they appear to be, single topics can be broken down into smaller subtopics. By forcing people to find a site by category and keyword in a very limited amount of text — a description and title — the directories are obviously very restrictive.

Hand-built directories are necessarily limited in size. Hand-built directories, such as Yahoo! Directory and the Open Directory, add a site to their directories only after a real live human editor has reviewed the site. With hundreds of millions of Web sites, a human-powered system can’t possibly keep up.

Hand-built directories get very dated. Directories often contain some extremely old and out-of-date information that simply wouldn’t be present in an index that is automatically recompiled continually. (Yahoo! spiders the sites — that is, sends out searchbots to look through the sites — in its index for broken links and dead sites, but if the site’s purpose has changed, Yahoo! may not realize that fact.)

The proof of directories’ weaknesses is in the pudding: Google took over and now is the dominant search system on the Web. (To be fair, Yahoo! helped Google by integrating Google results into Yahoo! searches, although in the summer of 2004, it dropped Google and began using its own index — then in 2010, Yahoo! dropped its own index and began using Bing’s.)

The old Yahoo! site directory is still there, but it’s virtually hidden to many visitors. A few years ago, the directory was still on the home page, but so low that you had to scroll to see it; now, the directory isn’t even on the home page. You can find it by going to http://dir.Yahoo.com or by clicking the Directory link on the More menu at the top of the Yahoo! home page. Few people do either. Probably the only real reason Yahoo! maintains the directory is because it’s a revenue source; Web sites pay to be included.

Why Are Directories So Significant?

If the Yahoo! Directory is hidden away, and if most people have never heard of the world’s second most important directory (the Open Directory Project at www.dmoz.org), why do you care about them? They’re still significant — though far less so than they were only recently — for a number of reasons:

Yahoo! Directory is part of the Yahoo! search system, one of the world’s most popular search sites (the fourth, according to Alexa). As such, it still may get traffic.

The Open Directory Project feeds results to literally hundreds of other sites, large and small. Many of these sites are crawled by the major search engines (such as Google), so a link from the Open Directory Project can show up as a link on many other sites, too.

Links in the major directories help provide context to search engines. If your site is in the Recreation: Pets: Rodents category in the Open Directory Project, for instance, the search engines know that the site is related to playing with rodents. The directory presence helps search engines index your site and may help your site rank higher for some search terms.

Links, as you see in Chapters 15 through 17, are very important in convincing search engines that your site is of value. It’s sometimes possible to get links from hundreds of search directories, on pages indexed by the major search engines.

By the way, don’t underestimate the Open Directory Project just because you’ve never heard of it or because the submission forms are often broken or unreliable. Data from this system is widely spread across the Internet and has been used by major search systems. Yahoo!, for instance, once used data from the Open Directory Project, and until very recently Google’s own directory (at http://dir.google.com . . . it’s gone now) was based on Open Directory Project data (which, incidentally, is owned by AOL/Netscape).

Submitting to the Search Directories

Chapter 12 has what some may find an unusual message: “Sure, you can submit to the search engines, but it may not do you any good.” Search engines really like links to your site, and having links to your site is often the best way to get into the search engines.

However, the search directories won’t find you unless you submit to them. And you can forget automated submission programs for the major directories — there’s no way to use them. Submissions must be entered into Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project by hand.

Submitting to Yahoo! Directory

Submissions to Yahoo! Directory used to be very difficult. Surveys showed that people who had managed to get their sites listed in the directory had to try multiple times over a matter of months. It was free, but it was a hassle. Well, I’ve got good news and bad:

The good news: You can get your site listed in Yahoo! Directory within about a week. Yahoo! guarantees to review your site within seven business days. They’re not guaranteeing to include your site — only to review and add it if it’s appropriate. In general, most people don’t have many problems. Yahoo! will almost certainly accept your site if it is

• Functioning without a lot of broken links

• In the correct language for the particular Yahoo! Directory to which you are submitting (Yahoo! has directories in several languages.)

• Works in multiple browser types

• In an appropriate category

The bad news: It’s probably going to cost you $299 per year for the privilege ($600 for adult sites). It’s free if you have a noncommercial site — though it may take some time for your site to be accepted, if it is at all — but for any kind of commercial venture, you have to cough up the cash. (Note, however, that Yahoo! Directory still contains many sites that predate the paid-listing policy and do not require payment.)

Is listing in Yahoo! Directory worth $299? Hard to say, but here are some good reasons to do so:

It seems likely that getting into its directory ensures that you get into the Yahoo! Web Search and may even improve your indexing in Yahoo! Web Search. The company actually states that it “can increase the likelihood,” but doesn’t guarantee inclusion. I’ve seen a site get fully indexed fairly soon after submitting to the directory, though that could be coincidence.

It’s crawled by other search engines, such as Google, so having a link in the directory helps the search engines find your site and may encourage them to index it.

Search engines use the directory to help them categorize your site.

Some people do use the directory.

If your site is in the directory, you may be able to place a cheap ad at the top of your category.

The 1-2-3s of getting listed

Here’s how to get listed:

1. Find a credit card.

Preferably the card is yours or that of someone who has given you permission to spend $299 (or is it $600?).

2. Open your browser and go to http://dir.yahoo.com.

You’re going to make sure that your site isn’t already included.

3. After the page has loaded, type your domain name into the Search box and click Search.

If you have total control over your site, this step isn’t necessary; of course, you’ll know whether your site is already listed. But, for example, if you inherited it from another department in the company you work for, who knows, it may already be there. If it isn’t, move to the next step.

4. Return to the Yahoo! Directory main page and browse through the categories looking for the best match for your site.

You can find tips on choosing a category in the next section, “Picking a category.”

5. Look for a link that reads something like Suggest a Site or perhaps a promotional box of some kind.

The link is probably somewhere in the top right of the page.

6. Click the link and follow the instructions.

You have to enter a site description, contact and billing information, and so on.

Picking a category

Because of the sheer volume of categories, picking a category is not as simple as it might seem. Yahoo! Directory has 14 major categories, and many thousands of subcategories. But understanding a few points about hunting for and submitting to a category can make the process a little smoother.

You need to choose a fairly specific category. You can’t submit to a category or subcategory if it only holds other subcategories. For instance, you can’t submit a site to the Business & Economy category; it’s just too broad. Rather, you have to drill down farther into the subcategories and find a category that’s specific enough to contain actual Web sites.

You’ll probably find that your site could perhaps fit into several categories, so you’re going to have to dig around for a while and pick the most appropriate. Although discouraged, you can put a single site into multiple categories, but, of course, you have to pay for each category. (And Yahoo! doesn’t like doing this, anyway; it can take time and effort to persuade it.)

One good strategy is to look for your competitors: What categories are they assigned to? If you find a category with a whole bunch of companies similar to yours, you’ve probably found the right one.

While you move through Yahoo! Directory, you see that some category names have an @ sign at the end, such as Graduate Programs@, Booksellers@, Intranet@, and so on. These cross-references are to categories under different branches of the directory. For instance, if you browse down the directory to Recreation & Sports > Travel, you see a link to Tour Operators@; click this link, and you jump over to Business and Economy > Shopping and Services > Travel and Transportation > Tour Operators. In fact, virtually every Web site that sells or promotes a product ends up somewhere under Business and Economy, even if it’s linked from other parts of the directory.

Also, you have to be inside an actual category before you can add a page. This is a little confusing, perhaps. When you first search in the directory, Yahoo! displays a page (see Figure 13-2) that contains a list of categories and a whole bunch of Web sites that match your search but from various different categories. Thus, you’re not actually inside a category at this point, so you can’t add a page here, but you will see links that take you into specific categories.

By the way, Yahoo! may not take your advice; it may put your site into a different category. If you’re convinced your choice is best, ask them to change. I’ve successfully requested a change, by pointing out not that the category is best for my client, but that the placement was misleading to searchers because people visiting that category would not expect to see my client’s type of Web site.

Should you pay for Yahoo! directory? That is, will you get your 299 dollars’ worth? As with much in the SEO field, that’s hard to say. If you’re a Fortune 500 company, go ahead and pay; face it, your company wastes that much every few seconds on everything from ineffective advertising to worthless consultants. If you’re on your own and your entire online marketing budget is $299 . . . well, no, there are better ways to spend the money. If you’re in between somewhere . . . it’s hard to say.

Submitting to the Open Directory Project

Yes, the Open Directory Project is free, and yes, you can submit much more quickly. But the problem is that there’s no guarantee that your site will be listed. I’ve seen sites get into the Open Directory Project within a week or two of submission, and I’ve seen others that waited months — years! — without ever getting in. Additionally, the submission forms sometimes don’t seem to work. Unfortunately, the Open Directory Project — DMOZ, as it’s known to search geeks — has more work to do than volunteer editors to do it (each submission has to be reviewed), and although it invites people to become editors, its editor-recruiting process actually discourages editors. Consequently, it’s hard to get into the directory.

But don’t give up yet. A listing in the Open Directory Project is a great thing to have if you can get it. As I tell my clients, submitting takes only a few minutes, so you might as well try, even if the chance of getting in is low. It’s like a free lottery ticket. Here’s how to submit:

1. Read the editor’s guidelines at http://dmoz.org/guidelines/describing.html.

If you know what guidelines the editors use, you may be able to avoid problems. It’s hard to get into the directory, so you may as well give yourself the best chance of getting in.

2. Go to www.dmoz.org.

The Open Directory Project home page appears.

3. Find a suitable category for your site.

See the section “Picking a category,” earlier in this chapter.

4. Click the Suggest URL link at the top of the page.

5. Follow the (fairly simple) directions.

Submitting to the Open Directory Project is much easier than doing so to Yahoo! Directory. You simply enter your home page’s URL, a short title, a 25 to 30-word description for the site, and your e-mail address. That’s it. Then you wait.

Nevertheless, understand that the editors at DMOZ don’t care about your site, they care about the directory. In fact, read the DMOZ forums at www.resource-zone.com, and you find that the attitude tends to be “tell us about your site, then go away and forget about it.” All sorts of factors are working against you:

8,000 editors are managing more than 700,000 categories.

Many small directories might only be reviewed by an editor every six months — or far less frequently.

The editors regard a six-month wait, or longer, not particularly excessive.

In some cases, editors may even ignore submissions. As one editor explained, “There is no obligation to review them in any order nor is there a requirement to review them as a priority. Some editors find it more productive to seek out sites on their own and rarely visit the suggested sites.”

As another DMOZ editor succinctly explained it, DMOZ is “very much like a lottery.” The fact is, as important as DMOZ is, you may never get into this directory! If you really, really want to get in, you might consider posting in the DMOZ forums, where you can ask real, live DMOZ editors what’s going on: www.resource-zone.com.

Finding Specialized Directories

For just about every subject you can imagine, someone is running a specialized search directory. Although specialized directories get very little traffic when compared to the big guys, the traffic they do get is highly targeted — just the people you want to attract. Such directories are often very popular with your target audience.

Here’s an example of how to search for a specialized directory. Suppose that you’re promoting your rodent racing Web site. Go to Google and type rodent racing directory. Hmmm, for some reason, Google doesn’t find any directories related to rodent racing. Strange. Okay, try rodent directory. Now you’re getting somewhere! I did this search and found several useful sites:

Ratster.com: A directory of breeders’ links, personal pages, and rescue centers. I’m not sure whether they’d approve of racing rodents, but a link from here would be great.

ThePetDirectory.us: You can advertise in this directory. A link would be nice, though I’m not sure it’s worth the price (sometimes they accept free listings). I discuss that a little later in the section “You don’t have to pay. (I don’t regard rodents as pets; racing rodents are working animals.)

NetVet’s Electronic Zoo (http://netvet.wustl.edu): This is a big list of links to rodent-related sites, though mostly related to research (the Digital Atlas of Mouse Embryology and the Cybermouse Project, for instance). It’s got a good PageRank, too, PR6, so links from here would be valuable. And it’s on an .edu domain, which is valuable (see Chapter 15). Perhaps you can suggest that your site is related to research into cardiovascular performance of rodents under stress.

Rodent Resources at the National Center for Research Resources: Hmmm, this is another rodent research site, but with an Alexa traffic rank of 357 and a PageRank of 8, getting listed in this directory would be very useful. (Maybe it’s time to apply for a research grant.) Also, because it’s at http://ncrr.nih.gov, which is a government domain, links would be valuable (see Chapter 15).

The Rodent Breeders List (http://AltPet.net/rodents/breeder.html): This directory strikes me as one of those “not very pleasant, but somebody’s got to do it” things. (How do you breed rodents, anyway? Very carefully I assume.) Still, if you breed rodents for your races, you may want to get onto this list.

When you do a search for a specialty directory, your search results will include the specialty directories you need, but mixed in with them, you’ll also find results from the Yahoo! Directory, Google Directory, and the Open Directory Project. If you want, you can clear out the clutter by searching like this:

rodent directory -inurl:yahoo.com -inurl:google.com -inurl:dmoz.org

This search phrase tells Google to look for pages with the words rodent and directory but to ignore any pages that have yahoo.com, google.com, or dmoz.org (the Open Directory Project) in their URLs.

Note: Some of the specialty directories that you find actually pull data from the Open Directory Project. To get into one of these directories, you need to get into the Open Directory Project, as I explain in the section “Submitting to Open Directory Project,” earlier in this chapter.

Hundreds of sites use the Open Directory Project information, so you’re bound to run into them now and then. How can you tell when a site is pulling data from the Open Directory Project? Here are a few signs to look for:

Although it’s a little-known site, it seems to have a lot of data, covering a huge range of subjects.

The directory seems to be structured in the familiar table of categories and subcategories.

The real giveaway is usually at the bottom of the page, where you find a box with links to the Open Directory Project, along with a note crediting that organization. See Figure 13-3.

Finding directories other ways

You can use other methods to track down specialty directories. In fact, as you get to know the Internet landscape around your business, you’ll eventually run into these directories. People mention them in discussion groups, for instance, or you find links to them on other Web sites.

I also like browsing for these directories in the major directories — Yahoo! and the Open Directory Project. Yahoo! Directory (http://dir.yahoo.com) has many subcategories for directories. It doesn’t have one for rodent racing, which apparently gets no respect, but it certainly has directories for many other topics, such as the following:

Snowboarding > Web Directories

Photography > Web Directories

Radio Stations > Web Directories

Arts > Web Directories

Comics and Animations > Web Directories

For some reason, Yahoo! Directory also has subcategories called Directories. (No, I don’t know the difference between a Web Directories subcategory and a Directories subcategory.) Here’s a sampling of the Directories subcategory:

Travel and Transportation > Directories

Business and Economy > Directories

Reference > Directories

Haunted Houses > Directories

Ethnic Studies > Directories

The best way to find the Web Directories or Directories subcategories is to go to the Yahoo! Directory and browse for suitable categories for your Web site. Each time you find a suitable category, search the page for the word directory to see if the page includes a link to a Web Directory or Directories subcategory. (You can also use the Search box; search for haunted houses directory, and one of the resulting links is Haunted Houses > Directories.)

The Open Directory Project also lists thousands of directories. Again, browse through the directory (at www.dmoz.org) looking for appropriate categories, and then search the page for the word directories. Or search for an appropriate directory, such as golf directories, golf directory, rodent directories, rodent directory, and so on. (Yes, searching on directories and directory provides different results.)

When you find a directory, see what’s in it. Don’t just ask for a link and move on. Dig around and see what you can find. The directory contains links to other sites that may also have their own directories.

Getting the link

After you’ve found a directory, you need to get the link. In some cases, you have to e-mail someone at the directory and ask. Many of these little directories are run by individuals and are often pretty crudely built. The problem you may run into is that it may take some time for the owner to get around to adding the link — after all, the directory is just a hobby in many cases.

Some directories have automated systems. Look for a Submit Your Site link, or maybe Add URL, Add Your Site, or something similar. The site may provide a form in which you enter your information. Some directories review the information before adding it to the directory, and in other, less common, situations, your information may post directly to the site.

By the way, some of these directories may ask you to pay to be added to the directory or give you preferential treatment if you pay.

Should you pay?

Generally, no.

Why not?

Look, it sometimes seems as though everyone’s trying to get you to pay these days. Every time you try to get a link somewhere, someone’s asking for money. For example, I recently ran across a portal with all sorts of directories that wanted me to pay $59 (regularly $99, though I’m not sure what or when regular is). That gets you into the index within seven days and gets you preferential placement.

Of course, that means this portal must have had listings over which I could have preferential placement; in other words, I could get in free. I scrolled down the page a little and found the free Basic Submission.

The term portal is an Internet-geek term that, roughly translated, means “We’ve got all sorts of stuff on our site like news, and weather, and you know, communities, and, like, stuff, and we still have some of our dotcom cash left, which should keep us going a few more months while we try to figure out how to make money, and heck, if we don’t, Uncle Joe still wants me to come work for him in his furniture store.”

I recommend that you do not pay for these placements, at least to begin with. In most cases, they simply aren’t worth spending $60, $100, or more for the link. It’s worth spending a few moments getting a free link, though. If a site asks you to pay, dig around and see whether you can find a free placement link. If not, just move on. If the site can guarantee that you’ll be on a page with a high PageRank, the fee may be worth it. (See Chapter 15 for more information about PageRank.)

However, here’s another reason to be wary of paying for directory placements. Google has stated that if a directory adds some kind of value — if the payment is for review, not placement, so there’s a chance you won’t be accepted, if the directory has the last say over the link text rather than simply accepting whatever keywords you request — then it will accept the directory and give value to the links. If, on the other hand, the directory is a simple “pay us and you’re in, and by the way, which keywords do you want in your links” type of directory, they’ll regard the links as no better than purchased links. (See Chapter 16 for an explanation of why the search engines don’t like purchased links and what they do about it.)

At some point perhaps, it might be worthwhile to consider thinking about paying for such placements, but generally, only if you know that the site is capable of sending you valuable traffic or providing valuable links.

You don’t have to pay

Luckily, you may find that some of the best directories are free. Take, for instance, the model rocket business. Hundreds of model rocket sites, often run by individuals or families, are on the Web. (See the site shown in Figure 13-4.) Many of these sites have link pages. Although these sites don’t get huge numbers of visitors, they do get the right visitors (people interested in model rockets) and often have a pretty good PageRank. Most of these sites will give you a free listing, just for the asking. Look for a contact e-mail address somewhere.

Using “Local” Directories

There are also many local directories — directories of businesses sorted geographically. These local directories are often good places to get listed. They’re easy to get into and can provide more site categorization clues for search engines, and they often have a high PageRank.

However, this is a subject on its own, so I cover it separately. See Chapter 11 for more information.

Submitting to Second-Tier Directories

Second-tier directories are smallish directories with nowhere near the significance of Yahoo! Directory or the Open Directory Project. They can help you a little if you’re willing to spend a few hours registering your site with them.

Unlike search engines, directories can be crawled by a searchbot. Directories are categorized collections of sites that you can browse. If you can browse by clicking links to drill down through the directory, then so can a searchbot. In fact, the major search engines index many small directories. If you have a link in one of these directories and one of the major systems sees it, that can help your rank in that search engine, as explained in Chapter 15.

Finding second-tier directories

There are literally thousands of these directories, though you don’t want to spend much time with most of them. Many of the directories you find are using data from the Open Directory Project, so you have, in effect, already submitted to them. (You did submit, didn’t you?)

Here’s the best way to deal with these directories: Find a service that will submit for you. Realistically, these have to be done manually — no automated programs can submit to a huge number of directories reliably — which is extremely time consuming and thus extremely expensive.

However, some firms use Indian labor to make it affordable. For instance, you may be able to find a firm that charges $250 or so to submit to 1,000 Web directories, or perhaps $450 to submit to 2,000. Now, you won’t get links in all 1,000, but you may get 400 or 800 over time, so that’s a great price. Where do you find these services? Try Guru.com, eLance.com, and oDesk.com.

Some of these firms take screenshots of each submission form, so you can be sure that the submission was completed properly. (It uploads the snapshots to a file-sharing site.)

I don’t want you to go away with the idea that these links are particularly valuable; they’re not. I believe they were more valuable in the past, but over time, the search engines have given them less weight. These types of links should be filed under the “they’re not great links but they’re cheap” category.

Avoiding payment — most of the time

Don’t bother paying registration fees to register with these second-tier systems. As with many of the specialized directories, the directory owners are also trying to get site owners to pay for indexing, and in the vast majority of cases, payment is simply not worth it. Regard being listed in these directories as cheap additional links, not as something you need to spend a lot of money on.

On the other hand, you may run across directories that you feel are of value — that is, they provide good links back to your site (which helps with search engine rank), or they are likely to provide good traffic to your site. Some of these directories have high PageRanks and do get relatively high traffic. However, before you buy, at least be sure that you know what you’re buying. Sometimes a link is not a link. See Chapter 15 for information about links with no value — links that look to users like valid links but that search engines either ignore or don’t even see as a link to your site.