Directory Maximizer, an established name in the field of directory submissions has been working hard for more than 3 years to make directory submissions more rewarding & effortless.

Providing clients with hassle free service has been their motto throughout & with this in mind they have added 2 more features to “maximize” your directory submission experience :

1. Monthly Subscription: We all know how forgetful we can be in missing out on submitting to directories regularly. With their newly introduced “Monthly Subscription” feature, you do not have to come back every now and then to order for new directories, just opt to have your site submitted to 100 directories per month for a period of 12 months. A sure way of building a continuous flow of quality one-way links at a nominal charge of $14 per month. You also need not worry about making regular payments, as the amount would be automatically debited from your account.

2. E-mail Handling: Everyone we know is fed up of checking their mails from directories. Thanks to Directory Maximizer’s new “E-Mail Handling” service, the painful days of checking your inbox continuously for e-mails from directories are gone, they will take over & all you need to do is enjoy the results. They will open a new email account solely dedicated for your submissions and will respond to all the mails coming from the directories, be it a confirmation mail, approval mail or something which requires you to click back for a link approval. All this is for a minimal cost of 2 cents per submission. Thus if you opt for an e-mail handling service along with your submissions it will only cost you a total of 16 cents per submission.

With these new features in the kitty of Directory Maximizer, they have taken directory submission service to a new level. Their constant desire to innovate & discover new customer satisfaction techniques continue making directory submissions with them a rewarding experience.

With Directory Submissions in the line of fire and people shying away from it, there has been a general misconception that submitting to directories is harmful for your site. Can somebody get me the guy who was kind enough to spread this baseless allegation on directory submissions!! For people who are wondering why I am advocating submitting to directories, it’s to state a universal truth. If directory submissions were harmful, it would be real simple to kill competition. Submit your competitor’s site to directories and later attend the funeral!

Lets face it, directory submissions are one of the main sources of links apart from various other methods. It’s effective especially when building links for niche and not so competitive search terms. I have seen the results myself and if you’re not too greedy with the terms you target in your directory submissions, you could be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Here’s an example of one of the sites tested: http://www.statisticalforecasting.com was submitted to directories using 5 different titles and descriptions. The titles used were ‘Forecasting & Statistics in Business’, ‘Statistical Forecasting’, ‘Methods of Forecasting’, ‘Statistical Techniques’ and ‘Statistics and Forecasting’. If individual searches are conducted in Google for each of these titles, you would see that the site ranks in the top 10 for some of these terms (not mentioning the rankings out here since they might change with time). What’s important to note is that this site has never been promoted by any method other than directory submissions and they’re still ranking on top!

A manual submission service, Directory Maximizer, was used for the submissions and the results are there for all to see. So I would advise all NOT to ignore directory submissions on mere hearsay, it can work if you rotate your titles, think about the target terms and take the time to do your submissions properly. If you don’t have the time to do submissions yourself, I would recommend taking a look at Directory Maximizer, they have some great features. If you choose to do submissions yourself, you can find a huge resource of free directories on our site, so feel free to use them.

I’ve been seeing a new trend for about the past 6 months or so. The trend is buying old domains with PR5, throwing up a copy of PHPLD with a free template, calling the directory a “strong PR5″ directory and charging for links. These directories are dead easy to spot, just look for the unusual name coupled with a lack of quality!

I don’t recommend you spend any money at all buying links at these directories. If they accept free listings, go ahead but don’t pay! Generally, the owners of these directories are just out to make a quick buck and will not spend any time or effort on building the traffic and popularity of the directory. We’ll see the evidence at the next PR update, but I am guessing most of these domains will lose some if not all of their PR and incoming links.

I am not saying putting directories on old domains is not a good thing to do, but like with any other directory or website, the owner has to work at it. I still believe there will come a time when a lot of directories will be dropped out of the index and only the unique, well promoted directories with added features for both users and submitters will survive.

So if you’re thinking of starting a directory, be prepared to put in some work. If you look at the top directories, their owners have put many hours into promoting and building a quality site. And the results pay off, becuase webmasters will pay to have their site listed there.

I’ve just completed another behind-the-scenes update for the site. Directory Critic’s linking structure is now 100% static. Meaning there’s no more index.php?page=blah&id=56656, it’s now all html links. Why was this update important? I’ll tell you…

1. More pages for Google and other SE’s to index easily. This is not only better for search engine traffic to the site, but better for our sitewide advertisers who will get more backlinks.
2. Better PR distribution throughout the site
3. Static URL for directory ratings. If you want your visitors to rate your directory you can now send the to a static url. Additionally, if you link back to this static URL from all your directory pages the PR of the page will increase and because your homepage link is on the page some of the PR will be passed back to you.
4. Static URL for view details pages.

Google spiders this site lik crazy, and once it gets through the new static link setup I expect the number of pages indexed for this site to double.

Which is good for everyone

I recently launched a couple of new sites. And the first step I take to promote my new sites is to get them listed in as many directories as possible. Sometimes I just use the free list, sometime I pay - depends on the site. But no matter what site I’m launching I know I’m going to be submitting to hundreds of directories!

So how do I do it? Thanks to some of the guys over at DigitalPoint who pointed me in the right direction when I started out, I now have my own “system” that I use to submit to directories. Here’s how it goes…

Before you start:

I use a freeware tool called clipboard magic. This tool basically enhances the windows clipboard by allowing you to have multiple lines of text saved, and by selecting a line by clicking on it you can easily paste that text straight to web form. So you can have all your new site information (including multiple site titles, descriptions etc) saved in clipboard magic and available for you to easily paste into directory submission forms.

Also, you need to use Firefox because it has tabs. You shoud be using firefox anyway, but let’s not get into that!

Step 1: Setup your website information

Download, install and open up clipboard magic. You need to enter all the information that you are likely to be asked for in directory submission forms. So enter thie information, in this order:

1. 5 different titles for your website (be creative and don’t stuff with keywords)
2. URL
3. Short description (for dirs that only accept up to 200 chars)
4. Long description
5. Your name
6. Email Address
7. Keyowrds for your site

I like to use this order because it’s in the same order as php Link Directory submit form, and php Link Directory makes up a huge chunk of the directorys on the lists. OK, so now save this clipboard list. Now that you’ve got that information, whenever you need to submit your site to a new directory you can bring it straight up.

Step 2: Enter your directory into the tracking system

So now you’ve got the information you need, it’s time to hit the lists! Let’s start with the free directory list. Open up the list and resize the window so that you can fit the clipboard magic window beside it. You need to access both these windows at the same time. It’s helps if you have a high res monitor.

I track all the directories I sumbit to using the tracker I wrote for this site. On the top of each list there’s a tracker box. For a new website you must enter the name of your site into the ” Enter a new website to track:” box. Click GO and you’re now tracking that site. The site will now be made available in the drop down menu for you to track future submissions.

Step 3: Submit to directories!

OK, now it’s time to do the submitting. I like to sumbit to about 25 directories at a time. So make you way down the list, right clicking on the directory and opening it in a new tab. Also check the checkbox next to that directory. Stop when you’ve got to about 25 directories (that’s alot of tabs! - but you can go more in you want). Now scroll down to the bottom of the list and click “Update tracking information”. This will save the details in our database.

Submit your site to all the directories you have opened in tabs by clicking on the information in clipboard magic and pasting it into the directory submission forms. Easy! Once you have finished those 25, move onto the next 25.

Keeping up with all the new directories

Not all of us have time to scan forums, blogs etc looking for new directories. That’s why I do it, so you don’t have to! All you have to do is just come back to this site every week or so, go to the new directories page, select your website from the drop down menu in the tracking box above the list, and submit your website to the directories I have added in the past week. Easy!

Further notes about submitting to directories

Here are just some general tips for getting your site listed in directories:

1. Never use auto submission services
2. Always read the directory rules (it takes 30 seconds to read rules, better than being rejected!)
3. Create a useful, well designed website. Directory owner dont want to list junk sites.
4. Don’t stuff you title full of keywords!
5. If you’re submitting to recip directories, don’t use sneaky tactics link nofollow and redirects.

Hope this has helped some of you streamline your directory submissions! Stay turned here for more updates. I am putting a great deal of time into improving this site over the coming weeks and I will be announcing all upgrades here on the blog.