Here are the two reasons I don’t recommend starting an article directory.

1. There are way too many already. I have 850 article directories listed on this site. Some of the niche article directories look useful but the there are way too many general ones to make a new article directory profitable.

2. The rate of abandonment is very high. While doing research for our list of article directories, I went through a bunch of article directory lists. Although many of these were less than a year old, I found an incredible rate of parked sites, dead sites or sites that were no longer directories. I am talking about hundreds and hundreds of dead directories. I also have to remove a large portion of my own listings every couple of weeks.

I don’t consider myself an expert in article directories as I have never owned one. Current owners would know better. My analysis is that there are too many and that the business model is not profitable. My advice for anyone wanting to start a new one is to try something else.