Which Web Directory?

Lee July 3rd, 2007

Yahoo was created in April 1994 by two Ph.D. candidates in Electrical engineering named David Filo and Jerry Yang. Yahoo was started in February 1994 in Filo and Yang’s campus trailer at Stanford. Originally it was called “Jerry and David’s guide to the World Wide Web”, but after randomly scanning pages in a dictionary for a smarter sounding name, they came up with “Yahoo”. Yahoo is actually an acronym for “Yet another Hierarchical Officious Oracle”, meaning that Yahoo seeks to be a directory that serves as an oracle to the modern day surfer.

Jerry and David only developed the directory originally as a way to keep track of their personal favourite sites on the Internet at that time. Back in 1994 the only popular way to find sites was using a basic engine called AltaVista.

The Yahoo directory is one of the premier sites on the internet today. Gaining a listing for your site can be free if it is completely non-commercial. For most webmasters however, there is an annual fee of $299 US. ($600 for adult sites)

The original fee, non-refundable, is for a review of your site and a one year listing if successful. The paid option does come with a guarantee that your site will be listed in 7 working days.

Gaining a link from the Yahoo directory can definately be beneficial to your site. It is considered to be an authority site, which means a link here may be given more weight Continue Reading »

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Lee June 28th, 2007

Kwikgoblin is a very well established paid directory run by Jeff Behrendt who also runs the Alive and Aviva directories.

Previously owned by Jason (yfs1) of DigitalPoint fame, it was well managed and had a Google Pagerank of 5. Since Jeff acquired the directory it has moved onto the next level.

The home page is currently a PR6 and there are 15 main category pages which can be accessed from there. The layout of categories is good and beneath that Jeff has introduced a great many sub categories, all logically added.

As is typical of the directories that Jeff runs, off site promotion has led to strongly ranked internal pages. All the main categories have a pagerank of 4 or 5. Below this many of the subcategories also have a pagerank of 4. Some, however, have no pagerank, either because they are new or because Jeff is yet to build incoming links to them. As I am unaware of which of those reasons apllies at this time it is recommended to check before submission.

A quick look at the detailed listings reveals that there is a hit counter. Taking a popular site, such as Dan Jenson’s info.vilesilencer reveals that there have only been 16 visitors in a period of just over a year. Therefore it would seem that Kwikgoblin is a good choice purely for building link popularity as opposed to traffic.

Kwikgoblin allows for two different levels of submission - standard at $24.95 and featured at $49.95. Unlike Jeff’s Aviva directory both of these prices are for permanent listings.

In conclusion, I believe that Kwikgoblin offers a good deal for the submission price. Like most web directories, it will not drive much direct traffic. However, it should offer a good bang for the bucks in terms of link popularity and the SERPS.

Knowing how Jeff runs his other directories it is also likely that Kwikgoblin will strengthen over time. Considering that Aviva is now offering yearly, rather then permanent, submission I am of the opinion that if you are considering Kwikgoblin then you should submit NOW, as Jeff is know to keep existing submissions on as permanent ones when he makes the switch.

Vital Statistics -

Google Page Rank : 6

Pages Indexed in Google : 2370

Inbound Yahoo Links : 176495

Dmoz Listed : No

del.icio.us Links : 42

Alexa Rank : 74292

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Lee June 13th, 2007

Dirspace is a well organised directory with 16 main categories and 5 featured ones. The subcategories are clearly named and are limited to 10 entries per page. With the number of advertisers the directory currently has, this means your link would be 1 of 14 external links on each page. This should prove to be quite beneficial in terms of passing page rank if that is your reason for making a submission.

We found no redirects or sneaky tricks at this directory and so assume that it is completely SEO friendly. Design-wise, the directory is clean, simple and pleasant to the eye. The submission process is very straightforward, asking for URL, title, description, keywords and email address - this directory appears to be using an upgraded version of the biz directory script, making it an easy one to submit to. At the time of writing paid listings are only $10 with premium submissions costing $40. Having paid for inclusion ourselves, we would conclude that this directory represents good value for money.

Vital Statistics -

Google Page Rank : 6

Pages Indexed in Google : 1360

Inbound Yahoo Links : 23413

Dmoz Listed : No

del.icio.us Links : 30

Alexa Rank : 49560

$100 in FREE Links

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