When we help organizations optimize their websites for organic search, one of the first things we do is look for “low-hanging fruit”. Is there a technology or architectural decision that’s inhibiting the search engines’ access to content? Are the website’s page titles adequately descriptive and do they include targeted keywords? Quite simply, we start with the basics.

The same approach is often the case with link building. For all the recent hype and arguments regarding the various methods for acquiring links (which I will gladly stay out of), we typically find opportunities for acquiring new inbound links or optimizing existing links staring us in the face. A favorite source of these “low hanging links” comes from partner sites. I’m not talking about traffic partners. I’m talking about strategic partners, distribution partners, business service providers, etc.|
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With all that’s going on with advanced link building techniques, what’s to become of our old friend the Web Directory? That tried and true guide to the World Wide Web. The organizer of cyberspace chaos. The human touch in an algorithmic world. OK…that’s enough. The time of the traditional human-edited Web Directory has passed (it actually passed quite some time ago). DMOZ is still in hibernation (from which it may never return). Yahoo! has removed directory links from its search results and homepage (it doesn’t get much clearer than that). And, Microsoft is rumored to be pulling the plug on its bCentral small business directory.

The human-edited Directory has simply gone the way of the floppy disk. The concept has been rendered obsolete by improvements to algorithmic search and the emergence of social bookmarking and tagging sites that provide users with more relevant and reliable guidance. The only "directory-style" sites that may still have a bright future are those that have maintained strict editorial control and do not allow direct submissions of content by site owners (which, by the way, means no payments from the site owners).

You can see the decline of the directory by simply taking a look at many of them. Designs typically look like they were frozen in 1997 (with a few exceptions). Some don’t even bother to promote their directories to visitors anymore and instead direct visitors to Google’s search results or Ad Sense advertisements. The directory is simply there behind the scenes to be crawled by search engine bots.

So let me get to the question at hand. Should we still look to directories to promote our sites? Yes and no (you saw that coming didn’t you?).

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