What is a Link Directory?

Often called a web directory, a link directory is a directory on the web which specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.

Not to be confused with a search engine, it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site, rather than one page or a set of keywords as a search engine uses . Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions .




Directories have various types of listings, often dependent upon the price paid for inclusion:

* Free Submission -
* Reciprocal Link - a link back to the directory must be added somewhere on the submitted site in order to get listed in the directory
* Paid Submissions - a fee is charged for listing the submitted link

* No Follow - there is a rel="nofollow" attribute associated with the link, meaning search engines will not follow the link.
* Featured Listing - the link is given a premium position in a category
* Bid for Position - where sites are ordered based on bids
* Affiliate links - where the directory earns commission for referred customers from the listed websites

Human-edited directories

A human-edited directory is created and maintained by editors who add links based on the policies particular to that directory.The benefit to these directories is that they are often targeted by SEOs on the basis that the links f will improve rankings in the major search engines.

An example would be the Open Directory Project and the World Wide Web Virtual Library.


SEO's use submission of websites to web directories to get vital back-links for the submitted web site. Manual directory submission is a tedious and time consuming job and is often outsourced by the webmasters.

Bid for Position directories

Bid for Position directories are paid for inclusion web directories where sites are ordered according to their bid amount. The more you pay, the better your chances are. When your link is placed on another site, it is more likely that the visitors of that site will also visit your site. This increases the number of hits on your site. But keep in mind, this doesn’t mean that linking with all the sites you come across can add popularity to your site.

Search engines give a lot of weight to the links. Caution should be given to the site which hosts your link or you host a link for. Quality websites can give you good sales and traffic, and a link to a questionable quality site can impair your business.

A free submission can offer you to add your websites to a link directory without having to link back to our website. Often, your listing will contain the nofollow tag in your listing.

A reciprocal link allows you to add your website to a link directory woth the premise that you also link to the directory.

Using link directories is one of the best ways to get quality links to your site. People who are searching for a particular type of web site will use links directories as an alternative to doing a search engine query. It is questionable if this technique is better than submitting to Google and Yahoo or paying a small fee to advertise through them.

The choice is yours to make. While there are thousands of link directories out there to choose from, your time may be spent advertising. If you are set on submissions to directories, you may want to consider paying someone to do it for you.