Directories are still very valuable for any ecommerce store but with the changes Google made last year, you have be sure that if you are paying for a directory listing, it’s the right one.
Quality links are essential for success in Google. If you don’t have enough of the right links, it really doesn’t matter what you do on-page – you aren’t going to rank for competitive phrases.
Traditionally, directories were good sources for quality links. In the early days of the web, every entry into a directory was reviewed by a person to ensure that only sites of a certain quality were accepted. Over time, directories started charging a fee for that review.
When some people realized you could charge money for a directory submission, directories for pay started popping up all over the place. And guess what? Quality didn’t matter any more. What matter was that if you had a working credit card, you site was good enough.
As you can imagine, this lead to spam and prompted Google to downgrade hundreds of directories last year.
So, which directories are still good?
Here is a list of directories that still provide valuable links:
DMOZ.org – DMOZ is the best and is free. However, since it’s reviewed volunteers, it may take a while to be accepted.
Directory.yahoo.com - $299/year makes it the most expensive, but worth every penny.
Business.com - $299/year – Google Loves business.com
BOTW.org - $99/year or $249 one-time
Joeant.com - $39 one time
pr.com - $199/year for the Gold Package that also includes 30 free job posting, free press releases and you can choose the anchor text
webworldindex.com - $25 one time
goguides.com - $40 one time
skaffe.com - $45 one time
sptp.com $99/year