There are literally thousands of website directories, though not all of them are worth submitting to because some of them are low-quality and will not garner any benefits whatsoever. However, here are some traits of high-quality directories:
Directory having some quality standards to submit/approve listings – Avoid submitting your website to a directory that approves EVERY website that is submitted to it. In these types of directories there is almost no quality standard, and search engines will not trust these directories very much, and human visitors even less.
Spam free resources – As suggested above, only submit to directories that accept “good” websites. If a directory lists MFA (Made for Adsense) websites or websites full of ads – skip these directories.
Well indexed in search engines – If search engines like a directory, they will index (list) many of the directories internal pages. It’s recommended to submit your website to directories that have good search engine exposure because this generally means that the directories are considered good quality or high quality.
Page 8 of 48 Directory Submission SecretsRegularly maintained without broken pages / dead links – A directory that is full of dead links or expired domains may lose their trust with search engines. To test out whether a particular directory suffers from these ailments – visit a few sub-categories of a directory and randomly click on some of the links contained within those categories to be sure that there’s not a large number of dead links. Many directories approve a website and then NEVER check it again, regardless of whether the listed website maintains the submission criteria. Bottom line – try to get listed in directories that maintain their databases regularly.
Have backlinks in search engines, or some established link popularity – As far as SEO is concerned, you can get high quality backlinks by submitting your website to directories. So, you should submit your website to directories that have backlinks themselves, which will often-times help increase the popularity of your website as well.
Originality of the directory – Some webmasters purchase a domain, host it, install a directory script and use a common category dump to create hundreds of categories. You’ll find that many directories have almost the exact same category structure. And sometimes, there’ll be directories with the same websites in each category, which means that there will be nearly identical directories on different domains. These “cut and paste” directories provide little to no SEO value and not recommended for submissions. It’s always better to submit to directories that have their own content, or at least differentiate their links/categories so that they are substantially unique.
Category structure – What’s the category structure of directory? I sometime see a directory with thousands of categories but no websites listed in them. Search engines don’t like these kinds of directories.
Tips
Here are some common traits of directories that you should avoid:
Directories that no quality review process or directories that literally accept every website submitted.
Directories that are mainly for link building aspects or making money with website submissions.
Directories that are “Directory farms”. Basically, one editor creates hundreds of directories just to sell links. This is a bad business practice and you should stay away from it.
Directories that sell Page Rank (it’s forbidden by Google)