Web directories are basically a compilation of resources or links that are categorized according to certain criteria to make searching easier just as a normal directory you would use where services are placed in different categories. Directories serve in the purpose of link building and are a part of standard web marketing strategy today.

Today the link popularity is the indicator of the popularity and success of a website. Therefore all search engines pay a lot of importance to having back links on a website and links from directories are greatly valued because the logic is that “if you are good enough for them you are good enough for us”.

At the end of the day even a search engine is a directory only that the directory structure is hidden till the user enters a query string. Even major search engines make use of directory listings at the top of their search results so having your site listed in high quality and reputed web directories is a sure-fire way to get yourself noticed. But directories take it one step further and a good directory that is human-edited will not have spam, mirror sites, sites selling you affiliate products and have pop-ups etc. so you could say that a directory is like a search engine with all the extra junk stuff removed.

Including your site in a web directory is an excellent way to gain more back links that are high quality and search engine friendly in order to gain more specially targeted traffic to your site that could boost your search engine rankings and besides incrementing the popularity of your site also further your sales.

However not all the directories out there are really worth registering your site in, they may not be adequately search engine friendly or be popular enough so the onus is on the webmaster to thoroughly research the web directory, review it and establish the linking structure for his site and calculate its future popularity and ability for back links before submitting a site for inclusion in a particular directory.

With this understood lets look at the web directories themselves to understand them better. Mainly they are categorized in two broad categories: General and Niche.

General Directory:

A general directory is your standard directory that contains categorized links ranging in many different fields. For example most general web directories would have categories like Arts, Careers, and Business etc. that are further broken down into their respective subcategories like Careers could be broken down into the various different fields of careers like Aviation, Computers, Accounting etc.

Niche Directory:

A niche directory is your standard directory that contains categorized and highly related links in a specialized category. For example: if you are looking for a certain product X then looking into a niche directory would give you instant results about product X and its immediately related products that wouldn’t normally feature in a general directory. Also any additional features would only be related to the product X like specialized articles, help, featured downloads etc.

General Directory v/s Niche Directory:

Obviously when you are surfing a general web directory to get to the actual field you are looking for you will have to spend much time surfing to the correct category, sub-category and so on and even on finding it surfing all the different sites to get what you are looking for so it becomes very difficult to even locate certain links. This is something that a niche directory looks to combat, with only high quality links in a specialized category not only makes the links SEO friendly but are also easily available to the user quickly and conveniently. For example, a person who runs a small home business related to a certain product X would feel more comfortable registering his site in a niche directory which specializes in product X rather than registering his site in a general directory or even major search engines which use link popularity as mentioned above to rank the sites. His site may never show up or even if it does it could show up on the 20^th page and we all know the user’s patience levels would never stay put till he reaches the 20^th page. So it would mean more success and more hits registering your site in a niche directory.

A niche directory listing also ensures trust because it is smaller and sometimes handled on a closer, more personal level a niche directory has trustworthy links as compared to a general web directory.

So if you have a new website that you wish to promote or a website that sells a niche product this would be the time to promote yourself using a niche directory.