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SEO & Directories - Submit Your Site to Web Directories

Submitting your website to quality web directories can help you boost your search engine visibility. But like anything else online, web directories range in quality from top-of-the-line to waste of time.

So what is a web directory and how can it help you improve your search engine rankings? What does the website submission process involve? How much do they cost, and are they worth the money? These are the questions we will tackle in this SEO lesson.

What is a Web Directory Anyway?

Web directories are not search engines, though many people confuse the two. Web directories can help your search engine ranking, though, so it's important to understand what they are and how the work.

Directories are Different from Search Engines

A web directory is basically a big catalog of websites that is edited and managed by people. Directories have the following things in common with search engines — both have databases full of websites, both have a search field where you can enter key phrases, and both provide search return pages with websites ranked by most to least relevant. But the similarities end there.

What's the Difference?

With a search engine, robots or "spiders" find websites and add them to the search engine's database. With a directory, human editors find websites, screen them for quality and relevance, and add them to the directory's database. This human intervention and review process is the primary factor that distinguishes a web directory from a search engine.

In Plain English - With search engines, sites are added to the database automatically by robotic web crawlers. With directories, sites are added to the database by people, following a website review process of some kind.

Yahoo is partly a directory. If you go to dir.yahoo.com, you'll be looking at the directory portion of Yahoo. You'll also notice a common feature of directories — the category. This system is used to neatly organize websites into categories and sub-categories, which makes it easier for people to find what they are looking for.

Web Directories Can Help Your Search Engine Ranking

Is there a connection between directories and SEO (search engine optimization)? Yes, there is. An obvious benefit of having your website listed in a web directory is that people can find your site when they search there. But directories can also help you rank well in the major search engines like Google. How? Because when you are listed in the directory, you gain another one-way link to your website. This helps to increase your link popularity, which in turn helps to boost your search engine visibility.

This is especially true when your site is listed in high-quality directories such as the one managed by Yahoo. This can help you score more "points" with a search engine like Google. When you think about it, it's perfectly logical. Being included in a web directory is sort of like a vote of confidence. It means a human editor — not a robotic crawler — has reviewed your site before approving and listing it. This tells the search engine that your website has some degree of quality, legitimacy and relevance.

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