Death of the Directories?

With the (hopeful) death of Page Rank rumour spreading around the web I thought it was time to tackle that sticky problem of what will happen to Directories when or rather if the PR was removed from the tool bar given that most Directories rely on the little green bar for their money and traffic
So in spirit of the web I'm a directory owner get me out of here

Those of you who own directories what are you planning indeed are you planning?

Interesting post :) (BTW I've edited your post because the link was a 404)

I agree that it is a matter of time for directories to end. The reason is not the pagerank, pagerank will be just the occasion which will give the end to this.

As we all know in business - and especially in the very competitive internet market - you need to fill a need in order to succeed. That is what Yahoo did before a lot of years when internet was full of information and there were no way to search them. As the first directory they of course made a huge web site.

In our days the only need that directories fill, is the need for links, and this is only for the newbies because the professional webmasters know that directory links don't really help with SEO.

Personally I own a web directory site, which I transformed to a portal in order to make it more attractive to the average user. So now it is a site that has a directory but also has news, guides and several other modules.

I will strongly agree that this is the perfect time to sell your directory business - or evolve it - as the time has come.....

I think only niche directories are having some future, I use them to promote my own related websites.

I think directories will be dead pretty soon....

very strange it was very easy to sell my last general directory (got 2 bin offers)

I agree with Olaf in that niche directories have a future.

Let's think for a moment about what led to people creating directories in the first place....

There were website owners who wanted to share their favorite sites. They created a links page and put up a laundry list of every site they had ever visited and liked and often shared a little bit about why they liked the sites. It was natural and organic and there was no PR influence. I'm talking the early days here - remember GeoCities?

Then as more and more sites sprang up and Adsense and other resources suddenly made having a web site profitable - the quality of websites began to decline. The search results for many topics became littered with sites offering very little useful information, but were more well-built, SEO-wise than the early sites. The led to many of the sites with quality information being difficult to find.

I tend to think people saw this cluttering of the results as an opportunity to offer something better and that's where directories originated from. It was only later when directory owners spent most of their time chasing PR and forgot about the listing of quality sites and creating a resource.

There's been so much talk lately of the death of directories. I have two, one is floundering a bit due to my lack of promotion so I don't really have a good feel for it's sustainability. The other one Crafty Tips, I believe is somewhat PR proof. If Google were to discontinue PR tomorrow, I doubt I would see much, if any impact on Crafty Tips.

Those directories that were created to be a resource will continue to be one; those that were created simply as a PR-based profit center will surely fail should Google ever end PR.

While I do think Google should have known that PR would become a commodity that webmasters would sell, I think many directory owners should blame themselves for Google even talking about ending the program.

And, no offense intended Tim, but, all these conversations about the death of directories is only going to make it harder for those of us with directories that can live without PR to survive. This trend is also part of the reason why my new site is being marketed as a series of guides rather than a "directory".

lol but it does make good linkbait :D and gets people talking.
I was a bit naught with the headline as you can tell from the actual post I don't expect directories to die but it would be a wake up call to those PR4/PR5 directories that just sit their earning a passive income not because they are in a niche but because of their PR.

yea thats long ago :)

at the end its all about: create useful sites for visitors (human people)... we should never forget this( I know sometimes its hard) ;)

Well it falls back again on how people respond to your site, regardless if its a directory or not. But I feel the directory niche is a little over-saturated, but it may change.

I totally agree with you on that, especially on your last line.
I don't think directories will die. I would rather think that they will evolve.
For a long time now, directories have been built on a PR basis, which is wrong, as proven now that google is pulling the rug under their feet.

They should evolve into something new, something that will attract the average internet user, rather than webmasters only, something that is missing from directories the last years.

However, I have to say that directories can help in SEO, and getting indexed purposes. I have witnessed a great improvement for some of my own sites after submitting some links to my own directories.
It is not the best way to get a SERP improvement, but it sure helps.

Also the number of directories will definately decrease, as many users, newbies and older webmasters jumped in this kind of business, looking for some easy money and not paying attention to what they offer and how useful their services are. After the noise about them die down, the best of them will still be there and offer their services, according to what the market needs.

Another thing I observed is that I started having massive submissions on my directories, right after all this google - PR - paid links  fuss started. So maybe some directories still help some purposes and some submitters know this... Will it last? Is it the beginning of a new era? Under which terms will directories continue? We will have to see.

Directories is a very old business model, and there is no need for their existence since many years (when search engines started to show up)

The evolving is here for a few years too. Social bookmarks are nothing more than directories with some added value, and of course they are here to stay.

So no matter if directories will be vanished by google or anyone else it is clear that they are going to be vanished soon :)

Regarding SEO I don't think they really work, at least for google SEO. When you say that you saw improvements you mean SEPRs or pagerank? Because I am afraid that pagerank has nothing to do with traffic or SERPs placement. Of course search engines like MSN and Yahoo still give weight to these links but who cares? :)

I saw SERP improvements. For some hot keywords indeed. I said it's not the better way, but they help.

I think you got also links from other sites, will say you can't be sure if those directory submissions really helped :)

But I did an experiment these days, I created some nice content website and submitted this site to a lot of general directories.
I will see if this will help to get some organic traffic

Cool. Olaf let us know how this will work.

I think the problem of directories was a only a temporary one and mostly Yahoo's fault. Even to this day they still charge $300 to be listed right? They totally missed the fact that getting a link in different categories has a different value, depending on the category.

Pay Per Click exploited the weakness by offering bidding for placement which enabled even the nickel and dime websites to advertise. There is definitely a difference between what someone can spend advertising toothpaste verses what someone can spend selling luxury condos yet Yahoo insists they all spend the same. Yahoo alienated the small website and that gave the PPC their opportunity


So my attempt, as vain as it may be, is to make a directory where the value of the categories can change and reflect the differences of the market. I also would like to co-op with other directory owners, pool the links so that we have a bigger database and more value for a visitor. It's at bungeebones.com if you want to lend an opinion, and get a free link while you are there?

I heard that now Google is not giving importance to Yahoo directories also. So indirectly google have convey a message to all webmaster that for them directory have no more importance and we should start see some more concrete and positive or may be we should start building websites which are purely for the visitors.

The conversation about Yahoo directory started when folks began noticing that Google no longer specifically recommended that folks submit to quality directories such as Yahoo and DMOZ. While Google does seem to now own DMOZ, they obviously don't own Yahoo and it always surprised me that they were essentially endorsing a competitors product.

There's a conversation with Matt Cutts somewhere online where he clarifies the rationale for the removal of the sentence and in it he clearly states that the removal SHOULD NOT be construed as the death of directories in Google's eyes.

As always the focus should be on topical links from quality sites. Directories that can become advertising and information portals should always have a place on the web. Directories that are not much more than link farms and PR peddlers will most likely see very dark days ahead.

I still use directories

How many of you guys actually use directories to find websites? I don't know anybody.

We submit to the free ones for the backlinks, but that's about it. We get virtually NO visitors directly from directories.

I don't think this is true. Yahoo's directory does have some value as a backlink. As all good directories do. But for $299 (or whatever the current price is), as a backlink, it's not worth this much money. So unless you're generating traffic from Yahoo's directory, this is probably not money well spent.

Directory Submissions is not as helpful as it used to, yet they still work and remain a valid tactic.


But you should submit your site to a fewrelevant directories of high quality.

DOMZ will be a great place to submit your sit but it usually takes long to get approved

I might be in the minority here but I don't know if I see the death of the directories any time soon. There is so much outdated information out there about link building and such that tell webmasters to submit to directories. New webmasters might be the sole reason that directories hang around for much longer than you think. They are the ones that don't recognize outdated info and will continue to focus on submitting to the directories. That said new or newer directories don't stand a chance.

I agree with the users here. Only NICHE directories have future. Or web directories like Traffup (which also provides free traffic)..