Search Engine Optimisation – Human Edited Directories

In today’s tutorial I want to discuss what role Human Powered Directories play in search engine optimisation. When I say “Human Powered” I am basically referring to online directories or catalogs with sites marked under highly relevant topics. Yahoo! and it’s regular web search makes up one of the most complete directories on the web.
When you submit your site it is put up for editorial review, which means a ‘human editor’ will review your site along with your title, description and chosen category. Your site’s presence on the directory is never guaranteed and it will be solely down to the editor.
It is important to note at this point that directories do not accept auto submissions and you should do this manually. Taking time to pick the right category and to ensure your site offers real value is a must if you want this type of search engine optimisation to pay off.
Directories Are No Good For…
Let me just make myself clear here, the directories are in no way helpful as far as ranking is concerned. The sites are listed in a completely random order like alphabetically or by Google PageRank. So your optimisation efforts will be wasted on directories.
Also the chances of you receiving any traffic from directories are well ..zilch. Millions of sites in a catalog form? What human searcher is going to pick this method over Google or Yahoo search? Even if they do search it they are never going to dive deep into the categories so forget about getting leads from directories.
What They Are Good For….
Since all directories are compiled by humans the directory results relevancy are very high and almost all search engine spiders (as a rule) start life out at one of these massive directories. The big search engines will find you if you are listed at one of these massive directories even without you submitting your site.
Also directory sites generally have a high PageRank and a link from one of these directories will offer massive help with regards to your search engine optimisation efforts.
I want to go on to describe two of the main directories that you should focus your efforts on, that is Yahoo! and DMOZ.
The Yahoo! Directory http://dir.yahoo.com/
There are two ways to get listed on Yahoo one costs and the other is free;
Paid – It will $299 to be listed in the Yahoo! Directory and works on an annual review basis. If you pay it is possible to be listed in a few days.
Free – It usually takes around 3 – 6 months via the free submission and a lot of the time you will not be listed at all.
If you do want to do this the free way there are a few tips you should be aware of that will increase your chances and enhance your optimisation efforts. You should always place a copyright notice on your page and avoid company trademarks. For some reason Yahoo! do not like listing sites with company trademarks? Just leave the trademark until after you are listed.
Domain names with more than 54 characters will be rejected so keep yahoo! compliance in mind.
Also a few on page matters, try and have 6-7 pages filled with unique content that directly relates to your general theme, get rid of under construction pages or broken links. You have to prove to the directory that your site can and will provide genuine information.
Just as a last note…Even if you pay to be listed your listing is still not guaranteed and the payment is none refundable.
DMOZ http://www.dmoz.org/
DMOZ stands for directory mozzilla and is sometimes known as open directory. It is a world wide directory that is updated and edited by a community of volunteer editors.
Google did make the decision some years back to stop showing dmoz sites in it’s results pages and because of this some of the sites importance was lost, however it is still a valuable visibility source and will carry high PR.
As with Yahoo! good content matters when attempting to get listed. It is human edited so be prepared to wait a month and do not try to resubmit your site.
Getting your site into these directories is all about quality and relevance, before submitting make sure your site is in peak health and place it in the most appropriate category.
In the next search engine optimisation lesson I want to focus on pay for performance submissions.