Pixelrage.net

Borrowing somewhat from my previous article about wasting our lives getting backlinks, one of the big methods of getting links are through free web directories. They can be found on most internet forums within some sort of “directories” sub-forum. Here’s a list of the top 5 things that really piss me off about most (if not all) free directories:

1. The template & logo were never changed
   How on earth am I going to have confidence in your directory or spend my time manually submitting 15 of my sites to a web directory that has a generic theme? What’s even worse is when the directory owner was too lazy to even swap out the generic logo. What a great first impression: I click your link to MyWhateverDirectory-dot-whatever and see a logo at the top that says “Sleek Theme.”
2. The directory owner looks like an SEO newbie
   Red flag #2 is when a directory owner seems to be attempting to build backlinks to their site for the generic term “web directory.” It’s a waste of your time. You will NEVER, ever appear for that term in SERPs. Think out of the box. These are usually the same webmasters who don’t even display the real name of their site on the upper left corner of it; rather, they’ll just call it “Web Directory.” If you can’t SEO your own site properly, then why should anyone bother listing their site on it?
3. You haven’t tested your own directory
   If your site can’t even accept submissions, why are you wasting everyone’s time? I can’t even put a number to how many times I’ve seen directory owners promote their new directory, then scroll down to see 10 angry replies from people who have typed out their link, description, keywords, CAPTCHA code, and then saw that the site was throwing an error after clicking “submit.”
4. If it’s a free directory, then where’s the “free” option?!
   I usually expect free directories to be, well, free. When I submit a link and only see options for sponsored, paid and recip-only, I get a bit mad. Some webmasters tell you to submit the link as recip-only, then will manually add you for free in the backend. That’s fine, but very unprofessional. If you’re going to do something, do it right: create a new radio button for “free (no reciprocal link).”
5. Mass-produced web directories
   If you’re promoting 10 new web directories in one thread, I will not even waste my time. This goes especially for a slew of directores that are all using the same generic theme and have the same category structure, and all have the same generic logo. It just shows that you’re churning out garbage that has no rhyme or reason: what’s the marketing plan or theme for each of your new directories? Oh, that’s right – there isn’t one…how charming. You don’t care, and it shows. Therefore, you’ll never be successful. You’ll probably just give up in a couple months anyway, and pull the plug on those sites, then let the (worthless) domain names expire, making everyone’s efforts in manually submitting their links in complete vain.

So, there’s my rant on the sad state of most free directories. I think that in the past few years of submitting to directories, there are only four or five that I’ve seen that were actually decent and gave the impression that the webmaster took time to make their directory special and unique. Power to them.