The term "human-powered" mainly refers to directories, i.e. online catalogs that categorize websites into thematic sections. Yahoo!, along with the regular Web search, offers one of the most complete catalogs on the Web.
When you submit a site to a directory, it is queued for editorial review. Usually, when you submit, you are allowed to choose the category your site will be placed under, as well as to enter the desired description and title for your site, which will show in the related category. However, the actual presence of your site is subject to the editor's decision when he or she browses your site.
Directories DO NOT accept automated submissions and have special means to protect themselves from auto-submission software. You should always submit manually to a directory.
What the directories are useless for:
With the directories, there's no such concept as "ranking", because once you've been included into the index, your site is ranked within the appropriate category by an independent factor, for instance, alphabetically or according to the Google Page Rank.
Thus, the concept of "optimization" has no bearing when applied to directories like DMOZ or Yahoo.
In terms of traffic, these directories are also of little value. The percentage of surfers who would prefer browsing categories in a directory over a regular search is quite small; few people tend to dive into the depth of the branchy vertical hierarchy of categories. Thus, your category listing won't bring you much traffic on its own.
What the directories are useful for:
Because the directories are compiled by humans and for humans (unlike the search engine listings which are compiled by robots for humans), the relevancy of directory results is very high. Search engines know that – almost any search engine spider starts its regular crawl at a directory like DMOZ or Yahoo. If you are listed there, the search engines will find you during their next crawl, even without your submission.
Additionally, directories themselves have high Page Rank values (as a rule). When you are listed in a directory, the directory is linking to your site. This link is considered high-quality and is very good for your overall link popularity, which is an influential factor when it comes to ranking. For the search engines that are able to analyze the context of your link (such as Google), your directory listing will be important because your link is supplemented by a relevant description.
Yahoo!
To submit your pages to the Yahoo! Directory, it will cost you $299 for an annual review ($600 for adult-related sites). If you pay, you can possibly get listed within a few days. If you go the non-commercial route, it can take months and quite often they won't list you at all. The registration at the Yahoo! portal is still required for both cases.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Tan The Man
Very thorough...
2 - Raul Vergara
thank you pal
3 - gimmster
A couple of minor errors in the DMOZ section.
Resource Zone has not provided individual site status checks since May 21 2005.
Search usually lags the actual directory by approximately a week. If searching for a url, use the form sitename.tld not www.sitename.tld
4 - Raul Vergara
gimmster,
it would help if you can give the url reference for this announcement for the information of everyone. thanks for the information.
5 - gimmster
here
6 - Eric Olsen
very nice job - thanks and welcome Raul!
7 - Brian Sorrell
Nicely done Raul!
This is a topic worth taking seriously -- at least for anyone in the industry. It's the kind of knowledge that can help to abate the spate of demonic-SEOs who keep spamming referrer stats, guestbooks and forums around the 'net. Your other articles are also excellent contributions. I hope that they get the attention that they deserve.
Cheers!
8 - John Davidson
Ya, except many say DMOZ is corrupt. See this for examples.
9 - Chris
That's great info and I always recommend my B2B clients to be listed on Thomas Register's ThomasNet.
10 - [Geeks Are Sexy] Tech. News
Very nice article, unfortunatly, submission to directories like this seems to fall off in the garbage bin 50% of the time ;)
Cheers!
Kiltak
[Geeks Are Sexy] Tech. News
11 - R. Matthews
"With the directories, there's no such concept as "ranking"... "
That's a little inaccurate. There IS one directory that goes beyond just listing and the editors actually rank websites: iOS.
Also, DMOZ editors do not always transfer a mis-categorized submission to another category. More often than not, a mis-categorized submission will be deleted.
12 - Musonica Media
Thanks, this is valuable advice in getting new sites on search engines fast! Does anyone know of other directories worth following up?
13 - Jon
@Musonica Media: joeant.com, lii.org, mpios.com (mentioned above) are all great. i try to avoid massively sponsored directories as much as possible - the SEs tend to rank links from these much lower. lii.org and mpios.com tend to be tough directories to get into (usually because your site does not meet their criteria).
14 - Paul Reilly
If I could have a $ for every small business that mass submits to all the directories and ends up getting hammered my spam email, I'd be a rich man.
Paul
Viral Marketing UK Blog
15 - John Betty
Pilots of Valor is a Central Florida Chapter of Pilots for Christ, International. We are a non-profit, Christian Aviation Organization that provides Mercy, Missionary, Evangelism, Outreach, Community flight, Mentoring Programs and Aviation based services.
16 - Aaman
Why does Christ need a pilot? Doesn't he fly himself?
17 - Z.Z. Bachman
Another thing to try if you are a blogger is to get your blog's URL in a BlogRing. We have over 180+ blogs listed and what makes us different is that we manually screen to blogs to be sure they are active and have high comment rates.
When you couple a search optimized Directory, with blog surfing services AND a good blogring the effect is amplified and the cost is virtually 0 just your time to cut and past html code into yuor template. Pretty sweet!
Great article Raul!
Here is also a great link that will give you a very comprehensive listing of Directories to enter your URL:
Here is our link to it: OpenWeb Directory and RSS Top 55 Site
--------------------------------------------------------------
ZZ Bachman / Have a Blog? Ring Surf it @ ZZ OpenRing
18 - Kart Redfield
Heres some tips and tricks of Search Engine Optimization that will surely help your site building traffic!
Submit to as many quality directories, article sites and Press Releases as possible like this site www.submityourarticlesnow.com . While doing so the most important factor to remember is that all these should have a unique content and anchor text. As this is what I am using for several years successfully and which I am promoting as "8 magical SEO Technique|submityourarticlesnow".
Many people do submit articles to various sites and think there job is over. But if you really want your article to make headlines, you should make it as unique as possible like the title above which is "The most effective SEO techiques!|SubmitYourArticlesNow!|". So now you know what this technique means.
Getting Backlinks: Most SEO's think the more the linkbacks the better the PR and SERP's which is one of the most biggest rumours going around in the world of SEO.
Don't place common anchor text on hundred's and thousands of sites as these can be identified by Search engines as link spam or a Black hat technique.
Avoid Link Farms: Avoid sites which offer thousands of links instantly by placing a folder on your site. This is one of the worst methods of getting linkbacks. While submitting to directories, have a close look at the PR and the quality of the backlink.
Make use of all tags in your pages like title, description, keywords, header 1, header 2, alt of images by focusing on 10 main keywords for optimization.
Install a sitemap script for your website if it has thousands of pages and set a cron to update it daily if you wish search engine's to crawl your site regualarly. You can find many such scripts on the internet today.
The more your websites content is unique the more chances are that it will rank at the top. So place your website content with some unbelivable words like for example - thought provoking content.
So start Submitting your articles now!
19 - tony scott
Forget dmoz your lucky ever if you get listed. but does anyone here beside dmoz knows good directory to submit.
20 - Malc
Very helpful article!
I am currently in the process of submitting my new health site, Fit and Trim UK, to Yahoo and DMOZ. Are there any other significant directories out there that are worth investing time in?
Malc
21 - Luisa
Big Up from Montreal !
I've been mixing dub tracks on my radio show for close to one year now, and I must definetly say that Twilight Circus Sound sites System is one of the most original, fresh and thoughful progressive dub sound system I heard so far.
KEEP ON DUBBIN for musicOs sake
22 - Lowload
Im very interested in knowing what other significant directories are out there for my site Lowload.co.uk - UK dedicated Servers
23 - Damian
Raul,
You gave a lot of valuable insight to people who are just starting to figure out where to begin with search engine submission and SEO.
I have found most often with my clients that many businesses out there don't pay any attention to the value that DMOZ and directory listings like Yahoo can have on your web site.
It gives you a chance to leverage some of the page rank that those web sites spend a lot of time and money on.
Damian
Tornado Technologies
24 - tony scott
How many people here will pay for dmoz. if dmoz was charging let's say 300.00 a year. I have submit my page beatyourprice.com in last two years in dmoz,no listing yet, I gave up with dmoz.
25 - Jimmie
I have published my website. What is the most important steps I should do to get traffic?