We have been working pretty hard over the last 6 weeks and have added over 1500 new US directories.  The majority of them are State and local directories.  If your business is local in nature then links from directories in your state or city should really help your search engine ranking.  See our  list of USA Directories.

If you would like to have your USA directory considered for inclusion in our list then add a comment to this post in the following format:

• URL*:

• Type*: (e.g. general, travel, blogs)

• Region*:  (e.g. USA, California, Chicago)

• Cost*: Free, Paid or Recip. ( free directories provide “dofollow” links without requiring anything in return).

• Comment:   If there is something about that sets it apart then include a 10 word comment.

Yes, we have been quite busy  over the last couple of weeks, adding new directories to Web-Directories.ws.  This represents unprecedented growth.  We just reached 14,000 directories 10 days ago.  It usually takes us 6 months to add an extra 1000 directories.

We have been aggressively researching directories.  Mostly from Google.  We have concentrated on adding regional sites.  We have added well over a thousand United States and Canadian directories.  Most of these have been at the state, provincial and city level.

United States

Here is a link to the USA directory listings.  I still have some State to do so I will be adding more in the coming week.  There are now over 500 Canadian directories listed.

 Canada

Here is a link to the Canadian directory listings.

There is nothing inherently wrong with .info Directories. The problem is how they have been abused by certain people in the directory industry. .info domains can be registered for about $1 for the first year but future years cost around $10 per year. A high percentage of .info directories disappear before their 2nd year. The subject was discussed recently at DP forum.

Here are some of the funnier comments.

these nutcases are buying the domains in bulk and churning directories like bunnies

cheap domains for cheap directories. nothing new here. quick buck crew trying to create an empire of poop!

.info Directories = I’m a moron following the moron ahead of me into failure.

The only difference between *.info and rest is that 99% of the *.info directories will be dead in 1 year. Other than that there is no difference.

Today a directory owner admitted to owning 2500 directories. So, someone pays a buck for a .info domain, uses a free script, a dump of categories and hosts a wad of them on the same server. They have created a network of identical, poor quality directories on a couple of IPs. The problem is that a small proportion of these (if any) will be around in a year or two.

I pity people with legitimate .info directories. They will be prejudiced because of the color of their extension.

Is it possible that the .info behavior can harm all directories. You bet! 

Should we do something about it.  Yes we should!

Yes, we have been working hard and we now have well over 14,000 directory listings in our database.  We have done some extensive research and added quite a few high quality regional and niche directories.   For example, have a look at the lists of Canadian and United States directories.  There are quite a few provincial,  state and city listings.  For niche sites, check out the science directory list.

Bing has  released  some useful link building tips on their blog.  The information provided gives some detailed information on how the search engines handle attempts to manipulate search results.  I would be fairly certain that Google follows pretty similar logic.

Content

Bing starts by repeating the same that Google has said for years.

“The webmasters who create end user value within their websites, based on the needs of people, are the ones who will see their page rank improve. So where does that value come from? Content. Good, original, text-based content”

Relevancy

 The importance links from relevant sites is explained.

Authority sites

 Bing explains that links from the most highly regarded, relevant sites are best.

Unnatural Links

Bing then explains that patterns of unnatural links activity can trigger a manual review of a website. They look at:

“the relationships between linked sites, the changes to links over time, which sites link to one another, and so much more”.

“When probable manipulation is detected, a spam rank factor is applied to a site, depending upon the type and severity of the infraction. If the spam rating is high, a site can be penalized with a lowered rank. If the violations are egregious, a site can be temporarily or even permanently purged from the index.”

They then provide some examples of activity that can get you in trouble.  Most of them were old news but two of them are important.

• The number of inbound links suddenly increases by orders of magnitude in a short period of time
• Many inbound links coming from irrelevant blog comments and/or from unrelated sites

Suggestions for Getting Legitimate Links. 

The blog post then provides some hints on how to get what they call “good, legitimate inbound links”. Here is what Bing suggests:

• Develop your site as a business brand and be consistent about that branding in your content
• Identify relevant industry experts, product reviewers, bloggers, and media people and let them know about your site and its content
• Write and publish concise, informative press releases online as developments warrant
• Publish expert articles to online article directories
• Participate in relevant blogs and forums and refer back to your site’s content when applicable (Note that some blogs and forums add the rel=”nofollow” attribute to links created in user-generated content (UGC). While creating links to your content in these locations won’t automatically create backlinks for search engines, readers who click through and like what they find may create outbound links to your site, and those are good.)
• Use social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to connect to industry influencers to establish contacts, some of whom may connect back to you (be sure you have your profiles set up with links back to your website first)
• Create an online newsletter on your site with e-mail subscription notifications
• Launch a blog or interactive user forum on your site*
• Join and participate in relevant industry associations and especially in their online forums
• Ultimately, strive to become a trusted expert voice for your industry and let people know that your website contains your published wit and wisdom

Even I was surprised that they recommend submitting to article directories. I was starting to believe that article directories where less relevant. Matt Cutts – could you please confirm this statement.  I’ll have to spend more time on our list of 750 article directories.

I believe that Google has led the way with this type of detection.  They would also use these types of methods to identify paid links. They See the complete article of Bing link building tips.

 I have just spent a couple of days researching niche education directories.  There are over a hundred listings.  Most of them are PR4 – PR8.  Please visit our education directory list.

This list is not the same as most of our lists.  Many of these sites would  considered authorities in their field.  It may be quite difficult to get listed on some of them.  Many do not accept or seek listings .   If you have a high quality educational resource site  then it would be worth the extra effort to try to get listed on these sites. You may have to email them with a friendly suggestion.  Good luck.

If you wake up looking like this, don’t go to work!!!