Directories play an important role in the search engine optimization course of action. The achievement and command for optimization services has led to the inception of quite a few companies that are providing search engine services and solutions. For this reason, webmasters have to be continuously on their toes to stay updated with the up-to-the-minute optimization practices and approaches. By the way, web directories are gaining recognition and acceptance as a highly effectual search engine optimization mechanism.

So let’s begin by understanding what web directories are. They are on the whole an ordinary platform where a huge number of sites and links are stocked up. Search engines make use of these directories to position the web pages, but not a lot of people are responsive to it. Until very recently people and even webmasters were of the estimation that these web directories do not serve any specific reason and they are just a lay up for web links. However, this opinion is varying at this time, given that people have become conscious about the consequence of these directories in search engine optimization and in due course get a high ranking by the search engines.

All links or websites that are piled up in the web directory has an explanation complementing it. Search engine bots or spiders draw on these descriptions to register the link in their individual directory to be put on view later when required. Simply put, the search engines make use of these web directories to construct and modernize their directories. They do not have to go through the tiresome process of dealing with an enormous collection of websites and contained links at one go.

Web directories were not given much of an importance and were looked upon in disregard until very recently it was revealed that search engines afflicted the directories as well. Once this information was conveyed to a lot of webmasters, all website owners started submitting their links to the directories. Search engine optimization experts as well view it as a very important step towards a continuous online success. Today there are a lot of directories for different niches. Most of them charge a fee for submitting your site whereas others are free directories.

Web directories have assumed a very crucial role in the search engine optimization process, with more and more people realizing the importance of this strategy in their website’s success.
In case of mere users, illustrious commercially-backed search engines by and large mean more trustworthy consequences. Such search engines are very well maintained and improved to keep in pace with the ever growing cyberspace.

Google
Google is the biggest directory present today. Google has a richly deserved standing as the best option for those probing the net. It functions on a crawler-based structure that lists the comprehensive coverage of the internet along with displaying results on a descending relevancy. It’s exceedingly suggested as a primary stop in your web search for whatever you are looking for. It is fairly user friendly for the reason that it provides a small search box to type in the keywords and pulls out images from the web. There are loads of news, products, user groups and reviews to search from. Within seconds you can get all the information you want.

Google is pretty known for the exorbitant range of features it provides including the cached links that can help you revivify the dead pages and view the older versions of the new pages. If you happen to see the Google’s run down menu, you will be able to see a number of search options like the maps, telephone numbers, stock updates and many more. You can also check out spellings, definitions and dictionaries. The Google toolbar has become exceedingly popular amongst the masses and is incorporated in the Internet explorer by default. Along with just being a web directory or a search engine, it also initiates its own advertising programs. Adsense and Google Adwords have revolutionized the revenue generating scheme in the online market.

Yahoo
Yahoo began in the year 1994 and therefore it is the internet’s oldest directory. Similar to Google, it is also a human edited directory and further organized into several categories. But in the early millennium, it made a huge shift to putting up the crawler based listings. Google was the next one to introduce such a structure.

Yahoo is slightly different when it comes to listing up the results and in the present moment it operates on a completely different searching technique. The search engine page is divided into various tabs above the search box. Yahoo yellow page listings and Yahoo shopping search engine are very famous search options in these specialized niches. The Yahoo directory still puts in links of the sites relevant to the keyword searched. These sites are again reviewed and accepted by the human editor. Whenever you search with Yahoo, you will be endowed with both related category links and on the other hand directory results.

There is a fee to be incorporated in the Yahoo directory’s commercial listing, although it is required to meet the terms and conditions of the site. The Yahoo paid inclusion listings are very famous for getting potential traffic for your website. Hence a lot of webmasters choose to be included in Yahoo for better results. Yahoo acquired the company called Overture in the year 2003 and has ever since come up with different advertising programs.

DMOZ
DMOZ is also known as the open directory. This open directory succumbs to volunteer editors to index the sites. It was launched in the year 1998 and was acquired by AOL. The company operates in a way that anyone could be able to use the content from this directory with an open license contract.

Besides being the open directory, DMOZ has a lot of drawbacks and for that reason it is very often not recommended. The site has absolutely no back up results and hence it does not match the human edited database. Furthermore the ranking of these sites during keyword search is fairly poor and the results are displayed in an alphabetical order when you choose to flip through categories by topic.

LookSmart
LookSmart is first and foremost a human-compiled directory of sites. It is slowly getting its popularity with its listings in two ways. It functions more or less like yellow pages where commercial sites pay to be listed in its commercial categories. Although, LookSmart owned the Zeal directory to index sites into non-commercial sites for free. The Reader’Digest backed LookSmart for about a year and after that the company executives took back control of the service.

LookSmart is very well known for the articles it provides. The articles tab in this directory gives an access to thousands of periodicals.

Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves has come up with a unique way to search up things where the users are to type in the question that they are looking for in their natural language and then they are responded with what seemed to be the closest possible answer to it. It was highly popularized in the year 1999. The technology behind this web directory isn’t as well as it seems to be for the reason that at one point, they actually employed more than 100 human editors behind the scenes to monitor the searched keywords. After that they used to go on the web with the searched keyword and locate the best sites to match the results.

In the present age, Ask Jeeves has come up with smart search and innovative searching tabs. It has now adapted the crawler based technology to supply the most relevant results to its users.

Lycos
Lycos is identified as one of the oldest search engines on the internet today as it was initially launched in the year 1994. It worked on the crawling structure until 1999 and thereafter ceased it and provided access to human generated results from LookSmart for popular keyword searches and turned on to Yahoo for other results.

It is has a pretty user friendly interface as it contains the information of all the pertinent categories on the bottom of the page and the search results are displayed on one side of the screen panel and the actual web pages are displayed on the other side. Terra Lycos owns the Lycos, it is nothing but a company formed by Terra Networks and Lycos. It is also the owner of the much known HotBot search engine.

Apart from these major directories, there are loads of specialized directories. So it would be advisable to look up into a business directory if you have to look up anything related to business, or hit upon a shopping directory to check out the free deals available. It is important to put in the proper keywords in order to come across the exact information you are looking for. With the amount of popularity these directories have achieved, they are surely going to revolutionize the information looking scenario especially on the online world.

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Author: - Date Added: August 29, 2007 06:14:00 PM

Category: Directories