Read any SEO company services page and you will find they promise to submit to N number of directories. Here is nice explanation of web directory term and why these directories exist:
“A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.
A web directory is not a search engine and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords; instead, it lists web sites by category and subcategory. Most web directory entries are also not found by web crawlers but by humans. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only a few categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.”
Submitting to directories is one of the oldest and basic SEO techniques, the question is if in web 2.0 era it still works? Based on my experience and I can assure you that each and every statement on this site is backed-up with a lot of “field work”, directory submissions still work. I took a brand new site, put some initial content on it, added new article every 10 days or so and let my crew do countless submissions. Well, not really countless, around 1500 to be precise. Targeted keywords were not competitive; you cannot get results for difficult keywords based only on directories links. And voilà! In 3 month my test lab bunny site was between first SERP’s, getting 2500 visitors per month- all from organic searches. For those who are in affiliate marketing field this can be really valuable thing to do. Build a little network of sites/blogs translate them in 2-3 main languages, find 1000-2000 global monthly searches keywords related to your niche and in 2-3 month you can get hold of 10000 visitors without breaking a sweat. Keep in mind that the content of each site should be UNIQUE and readable, not spammy yadda yadda yadda.
Performing this job is really easy, but time consuming. The strength here is really in numbers, because 100 directory links won’t bring you any rating, so if you gonna do it – make a lot of submissions! Another important aspect is checking IP of directory, many of them belong to large network of directories hosted on the same IP. First of all you’ll waist you time submitting to same IP site, google doesn’t count multiple links from same IP. Second, and most important issue is having a lot of links from same IP might look like “link wheel “by search engines and this is last thing that you want them to think.
