To those who are reading this article, I assume probably have some internet knowledge and are curious about the big hype there is about directories. Perhaps some even think that they are a waste of time and see no extraordinary purpose for them. To be perfectly honest, thats almost correct.

The ways of the search engines are becoming ever more powerful, they are constantly evolving and learning at an exponential rate. Why would anyone bother visiting a directory to search for a specific website or product when they could just use a SE?

What some of you that dont know, Google has an estimated 8-9 Billion web pages in its index. Yahoo and Msn have roughly the same amount. When some one searches they usually only see the first 10-20 sites and then never even notices the other 6 million results. So one could argue the fact that directories are a way for small time websites to gain exposure on the internet. Similar to the way the small time search engines. To have a website listed in a few 100 directories and be indexed with some minor search engines can bring some traffic to a website. However, nothing can even compare to the traffic generated by having a website on a top page of a Google, Msn or Yahoo search.

Internet directories provide also provide back links. To those of us who constantly try to evolve our SEO for our websites, all know that back links are absolutely vital to a top 10 placement for a search in Google/MSN/Yahoo. As of now, search engines take the number of back links, the quality of back links, and the relevancy of back links into tremendous consideration when determining search engine placement.

To top this all off, the back links, if quality, will undoubtedly help you new website get crawled and indexed promptly.

Im sure some who read this are wondering; How do I decide of a directory will give me a quality back link? So, ill leave you with this.

The cat taught the baby tiger valuable information on how to be a fierce fighter. One day the tiger grew up, and decided to turn on his teacher, the cat. The tiger chased the cat until the cat ran up a tree. That was the one secret the cat never taught the tiger.