I’d be surprised that anyone reading this post has not heard of Alive Web Directory. Alive is one of the most well-promoted and quality directories on the web today. It’s always on my “must submit” list of directories I submit my new sites to.

Alive Directory has just launched a new blog directory. The blog directory has been built on the Alive Directory domain and will benefit from the authority, traffic and backlinks. Like the main Alive Directory, Alive’s blog directory has a huge selection of categories and submission options. You can choose from yearly or permanent listings and deep linking options are also available.

I have always valued Alive Directory as one of the best in the business, and I think if you own a blog you should definitely consider submitting it to Alive’s new blog directory.

Note: This was not a paid post. I always disclose paid posts on this blog. I genuinely do submit my sites to Alive Directory and recommend it to Directory Critic visitors.

Hi guys and girls!

We’ve added a few new features to the site in the past week. Here they are:

1. Social Bookmarking Buttons
   If you use social bookmarking, please support us by adding the pages of this site that you like to your bookmarks. You can find buttons to all the popular social bookmarking sites on all or lists and homepage.
2. Thumbnails On Details Pages
   We’ve now added thumbnails to the details page for all directories listed on Directory Critic. You can see an example of Aviva’s details page here.

I’ve also been talking to a few directory owners about the possibility of payment to be listed rather than reciprocal linking. Some directory owners would like the ability to pay a fee for being listed rather than placing a link to us on their site.

Soon we’ll be adding this feature, along with new featured directory listings. For a 1 time fee directory owners will be able to get listed without linking back to us. The recip linking option will still be available for those who don’t mind adding the link.

Featured listings will give directory owners the opportunity to be listed at the top of the paid directory list. Featured listings will be available on the paid list only.

So stay tuned for those updates. Any questions, post a comment!

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.

Tonight the number of active and verified webmaster ratings on Directory Critic clocked over 6,000!

Thanks to all the directory owners that send their submitters to rate their directory here. It should pay off in return traffic in the long run!

:)

To be honest, when I submit my link to most web directories I don’t expect to get any traffic at all back. I use web directories for links, not traffic, that’s it. The only directory I expect to get an decent traffic from is Yahoo! Directory. But when I was going through my stats for all my smaller sites this morning I noticed I was getting traffic from a number of directories I submitted to. So I thought I’d make a list of the directories that sent me traffic.

The amount of traffic sent by each directory varied site to site. Generally speaking, only 1 or 2 free directories sent me traffic the rest were paid placements. So, here’s the list of directories that sent me traffic:

1. Aviva Directory (send on a few sites too)
2. King Bloom
3. Best Of The Web (my 2 month free sponsor sent quite a few, as did regular listings)
4. Yahoo! (easily send the most traffic - but it’s the most expensive)
5. Directory Panel
6. Links Juice
7. DirSpace
8. Ezilon
9. Joe Ant
10. y7n Directory
11. Romow

There were a lot of other directories that did send traffic, but it was only about 1-2 visitors a month which does make the list!

If you look at the above list you’ll see a very obvious trend…they are all quality, well managed directories. Which means not only do they send a bit of traffic, but your link is actually worth something when you submit it.

If you ask me, directory link building is definately not dead. I have just become a lot more selective about the site(s) I submit my site to. My old methods were to grab every link I could get, but that’s definately changed - especially with my larger sites.

It’s easy to see who puts time, effort and money into making a solid directory. These are the directories that you want your site listed in. And for the directory owners, the time, effort and money should pay off