What are the best paid web directories?

[joo]

I'm not sure if it's worth the money, so first I don't want to try with Yahoo dir, but something a bit cheaper. I have a foreign site, but everything is translated ti english as well. I stucked at te second page for my keyword, so I tought I give this method a try. What do You think?

[beeneeb]

I would recommend using the Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/) to view your competitor's websites.  Then, sort them by Domain Authority and take a look at the web directories that they've used.  In my personal experience, a lot of my competitors use paid web directories and you can figure out which ones are worth trying and which ones aren't.  The great thing about the Open Site Explorer is that it'll show you directories that actually have relevance instead of just blindly "googling" for paid directories.

[RyanKent]

What do You think?

It's a bad idea.

You are paying for a link, and the link is of extremely limited value. The reality is that almost no one will ever see or use the link. You are paying purely for whatever value this link offers to boost your site's credibility. The value from the link will range from none, to almost none.

You didn't mention your site, nor is it listed in your profile, so I will have to keep things in general terms. If you publish one good article and earn a link because someone thought your content was valuable, then that will be worth more then a paid link.

If you go to other forums or blogs, offer helpful comments and occasionally link to a relevant, quality article on your site, then that link will offer more value then the link you pay for.

If you can somehow inspire a few people to promote your content on facebook, twitter, or other social sites then that will have real value.

Try to build your site through creating great content, then promoting that content, not through paid directories. Great content can often hold it's value for many years.

[DanielFreedman]

I have a list of about 12 high quality, high domain authority free directories I use regularly -- supplemented by a few free directories specific to the subject matter. In each case, my team hand crafts detailed entries. There is really no other way.

If competitors have achieved some success with paid directories, I will occasionally duplicate the effort. But I recognize that any boost is likely to be short-lived.

I agree that other strategies can be more effective. But I fall short of disdaining entirely the use of paid directories

[RyanKent]

Thanks for sharing your experience Daniel.

I am curious. Have you had a chance to look at the directory pages your sites are listed on? It seems often those pages are buried so deep either those pages are not indexed, or those pages lack any page rank.

[DanielFreedman]

Yes, I do track results and in almost all cases there is substantial page rank. When a directory stops ranking, we drop it from the list. We also max out on the listing by adding images, descriptions, product lists, categories, etc. It's very labor intensive. And you need intelligent people doing the work. It is not a rote, mechanical task. You have to be able to describe the company in anything from 160 characters to 500 words. And just cutting and pasting web copy seldom suffices.

[David_ODonnell]

This list includes some paid directories http://www.seomoz.org/directories

However, it looks as though it has not been updated for some time.

[KeriMorgret]

Just wanted to leave a quick note saying that SEOmoz has upgraded our Link Directory! You can view a post Cyrus wrote with more information about the directory update and link building via directories at http://www.seomoz.org/blog/seo-link-directory-best-practices

[DoRM]

Would you mind sharing some of your list? Do they drive good traffic?