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Unit 10: Directories

kinds of sites. Other popular general-purpose search directories are Google Directory and Yahoo! Notes
Directory. The Best of the Web is one of the oldest Web directories and it still keeps to high
standards in selecting sites.
Besides general-purpose Web directories, there are incredibly many topical ones.

Example: The Environment Directory lists links to environmental sites only, while The
Radio Directory lists thousands of radio stations worldwide, arranged by country, format, etc.
There are also many local and national Web directories, which accept links to sites about a
particular region or country only and which can be great if your site is targeted at local and
national audience only. You see, it is not possible to mention even the topics of specialized
search directories only because the list will get incredibly long. Using Google and specialized
search resources like the Search Engines Directory, you can find on your own many directories
that are related to your area of interest.
Search engine optimization (SEO) experts spend most of their time optimizing for Google and
occasionally one or two other search engines. There is nothing wrong in it and it is most logical,
having in mind that topping Google is the lion’s share in Web popularity but very often, no
matter what you do, topping Google does not happen. Or sometimes, the price you need to pay
(not literally but in terms of effort and time) to top Google and keep there is too high. Maybe we
should mention here the ultimate SEO nightmare – being banned from Google, when you
simply can’t use Google (or not at least until you are readmitted to the club) and no matter if you
like it or not, you need to have a look about possible alternatives.

10.6.1 What are Google Alternatives?

The first alternative to Google is obvious – optimize for the other major search engines, if you
have not done it already. Yahoo! and MSN (to a lesser degree) can bring you enough visitors,
though sometimes it is virtually impossible to optimize for the three of them at the same time
because of the differences in their algorithms. You could also optimize your site for (or at least
submit to) some of the other search engines (Lycos, Excite, Netscape, etc.) but having in mind
that they altogether hardly have over 3–5% of the Web search traffic, do not expect much.
Another alternative is to submit to search directories (also known as Web directories) and
specialized search engines. Search directories might sound so pre-Google but submitting to the
right directories might prove better than optimizing for MSN, for example. Specialized search
engines and portals have the advantage that the audience they attract consists of people who are
interested in a particular topic and if this is your topic, you can get to your target audience
directly. It is true that specialized search engines will not bring you as many visitors, as if you
were topping Google but the quality of these visitors is extremely high.

10.6.2 Specialized Search Engines

Specialized search engines are one more tool to include in your SEO arsenal. Unlike general-
purpose search engines, specialized search engines index pages for particular topics only and
very often there are many pages that cannot be found in general-purpose search engines but
only in specialized ones. Some of the specialized search engines are huge sites that actually host
the resources they link to, or used to be search directories but have evolved to include links not
only to sites that were submitted to them. There are many specialized search engines for every
imaginable topic and it is always wise to be aware of the specialized search engines for your
niche. The examples in the next section are by no means a full list of specialized search engines
but are aimed to give you the idea of what is available. If you search harder on the Web, you will
find many more resources.

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