Best of the Webs is another PHP Link Directory powered site with a vast array of categories for submitting sites.

There is no messing with this directory, no blog, no articles – it is a straight forward general web directory with two simple listing types, featured and regular. It is nicely laid out and designed with what appears to be a unique template (I don’t think I’ve seen it before anyway!)

A unique template is an important factor in determining if a directory will provide a quality link. Directories that use identical templates, and worse still identical category structures, look very similar to search engines (especially if they don’t have many listings in them), and may suffer from a duplicate content penalty. A link from a site like that is next to worthless.

One particularly good feature of Best of the Webs is that the latest listings (both featured and regular) are shown on the home page, which gives your site a bit of a boost when you first submit it.

Check out Best of the Webs Directory.

Alive Directory is one of the strongest paid directories on the internet at the moment. With a solid category structure, page strength of 5.5 7, PageRank of 6 on the home page and PageRank on most internal pages, it provides a strong back link. It is also one of relatively few authority directories. (How can you tell? The top result for a search for Alive Directory in Google is an extended listing.)

It has a variety of pricing plans, both yearly and permanent, which are quite expensive, but then it is one of the stronger directories. A new feature added recently is the ability to promote your site on the front page of the directory through ‘daily listings’.

The main reason for the high PageRank is the vast number of backlinks pointing at the site, over 900,000 which is more the dmoz.org! And the authority of the site is probably due in part from the 1300 links from .edu sites (although exactly how you achieve this special status in Google is a bit of a mystery).

Where do all these backlinks come from? Well, Alive Directory is one of the most obviously promoted web directories on the net. It sponsors loads of directory templates and is listed in most directories. A link from Alive is even more powerful if your site is a directory since it is obviously a ‘link hub’ (a central authoritative resource) for directories.

The search for back links to your sites is never ending and looking out for quality web directories is a big part of that.

www.urldir.org is a new family friendly and human edited general SEO web directory that has been added to the general directories category in our SEO resources directory. You have to pay for listings (currently $20 for a featured listing which includes 7 extra links) but if you are serious about promoting your site, this is a good thing. Requiring a fee tends to discourage submissions from spammy sites, so you know your site is going to be listed alongside other good quality sites.

Another great feature of UrlDir.org is the large description limit of 750 characters. Writing a detailed description will encourage people browsing the directory to visit your site and improve the quality of the back link. (Search engines look at the text around a link to help determine it’s relevance.)

The directory isn’t showing any toolbar PageRank yet, but with over a thousand backlinks that is sure to change at the next update. The home page and internal pages have been recently cached by Google though, which means the link to your site would be found.

One of the first sites to take up a featured listing in our resource directory is mainsearches.com, a SEO Web Directory.

It is a well designed and well-organised general directory (like DMOZ and BOTW) with a large number of categories where you can submit sites. It offers regular, featured and reciprocal listing options (with extra deep links) and is also human edited and reviewed.

With thousands of web directories of varying quality to choose from, how do you decide which ones are worth spending money on? And, even if they are free, submitting your site takes time which we are all short of.

There are a number of things to look for in a quality web directory:

• Are the links it provides search engine friendly?
• Does it have PageRank?
• Are it’s internal pages cached by Google?
• Are the sites already listed of good quality and well categorised?
• Does it offer extra links?

These factors indicate that the link you get from a directory is worth it and of good quality – mainsearches.com meets all of these criteria and offers pretty good value too at $8.99 (price at time of writing) for a regular listing with 5 extra links .

The Free DIY SEO resource directory is now accepting featured listings.

These listings have a number of benefits over normal listings:

1. They are listed at the top of every page in a category (the general directories category has 9 pages at the moment).
2. They can be submitted to more than one category.
3. The title doesn’t have to be the website or company name.
4. Fast Approval.

All this for only $5!

A bargain, even if I do say so myself!