I wanted to make a list for myself of the strongest and best web directories currently available on the internet. Then I decided to publish it, as maybe some other webmasters could also make use of it. In the table I ordered the web directories by Seomoz' Page Authority. I am going to update the list every 2-3 months.
| Directory | PR | MR | DA | Alexa | BL | Age | Price | ED |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| dmoz.org | 7 | 7.44 | 98 | 1022 | 41741 | 14 | $0 | 10 |
| dir.yahoo.com | 8 | 6.47 | 100 | 4 | 6082 | 15 | $299,00 | 10 |
| business.com | 6 | 6.58 | 85 | 4304 | 6492 | 16 | $299,00 | 10 |
| botw.org | 7 | 6.46 | 83 | 8991 | 2772 | 16 | $149,95 | 10 |
| pegasusdirectory.com (1) | 5 | 6.40 | 74 | 40948 | 5131 | 7 | $0 | 2 |
| ezilon.com | 6 | 6.46 | 74 | 5290 | 1808 | 10 | $69,00 | 10 |
| familyfriendlysites.com | 6 | 6.66 | 75 | 86726 | 1553 | 11 | $19,91 | 1 |
| avivadirectory.com | 5 | 6.39 | 70 | 46600 | 1536 | 7 | $49,95 | 9 |
| elib.org (2) | 5 | 6.46 | 67 | 76589 | 2324 | 13 | $72,00 | 4 |
| dirjournal.com | 5 | 6.47 | 69 | 23842 | 615 | 6 | $59,95 | 7 |
| joeant.com | 6 | 6.61 | 68 | 25216 | 1575 | 11 | $39,99 | 10 |
| abilogic.com | 5 | 5.88 | 65 | 43203 | 1935 | 9 | $39,99 | 3 |
| alivedirectory.com | 6 | 6.58 | 65 | 79534 | 1517 | 7 | $49,95 | 8 |
| mygreencorner.com | 5 | 6.14 | 64 | 31523 | 1923 | 6 | $15,00 | 3 |
| jasminedirectory.com | 4 | 6.03 | 63 | 34481 | 686 | 4 | $19,00 | 9 |
| webworldindex.com | 5 | 6.22 | 63 | 11828 | 1619 | 10 | $25,00 | 7 |
| goguides.org | 5 | 5.81 | 63 | 51250 | 1289 | 12 | $69,95 | 4 |
| hotvsnot.com (3) | 6 | 7.23 | 85 | 13489 | 9083 | 9 | $60,00 | 1 |
| gimpsy.com | 5 | 6.15 | 61 | 57273 | 1137 | 10 | $49,00 | 10 |
| incrawler.com | 5 | 6.54 | 58 | 103391 | 782 | 8 | $24,95 | 7 |
| clora.net | 6 | 5.57 | 60 | 132370 | 490 | 14 | $49,95 | 5 |
| findelio.com | 5 | 6.02 | 60 | 27649 | 958 | 8 | $40,00 | 8 |
| skaffe.com | 4 | 5.75 | 57 | 85110 | 511 | 8 | $44,99 | 8 |
| cannylink.com | 5 | 5.77 | 54 | 129026 | 544 | 14 | $19,95 | 1 |
| directory.v7n.com (4) | 4 | 5.84 | 68 | 3323 | 326 | 8 | $44,99 | 7 |
| zorg-directory.com | 5 | 6.27 | 55 | 181985 | 411 | 5 | $49,99 | 5 |
| gii.in | 3 | 5.64 | 51 | 138244 | 480 | 5 | $25,00 | 2 |
| 2yi.net | 4 | 5.87 | 50 | 167663 | 350 | 10 | $15,95 | 2 |
| kwikgoblin.com | 3 | 5.34 | 48 | 553667 | 589 | 7 | $34,95 | 4 |
| sevenseek.com (5) | 5 | 5.45 | 48 | 237421 | 494 | 7 | $50,00 | 6 |
| allinfodir.com | 3 | 5.67 | 45 | 313141 | 292 | 5 | $26,95 | 5 |
| webotopia.org | 4 | 5.19 | 43 | 135624 | 313 | 6 | $14,99 | 4 |
| umdum.com | 3 | 5.26 | 39 | 553956 | 132 | 6 | $50,00 | 5 |
| earthwebdirectory.com | 5 | 6.68 | 49 | 192784 | 128 | 5 | $100,00 | 7 |
| octopedia.com | 4 | 5.64 | 40 | 393449 | 164 | 8 | $25,00 | 5 |
| worldsiteindex.com | 5 | 5.82 | 59 | 79062 | 1502 | 9 | $20,00 | 7 |
| massivelinks.com | 4 | 5.24 | 54 | 91878 | 587 | 12 | $39,99 | 2 |
| arielis.com | 4 | 5.28 | 46 | 501991 | 195 | 13 | $29,95 | 3 |
Notes/Attention/Updates
Update 04/07/2013
- Table sort functionality has been added to the best web directories list. The default onload sorting is by Domain Authority.
- Since Google highlighted many times that web directories with no editorial discretion (directories without any editor, where any kind of website is accepted if the review fee is paid) are treated in the same manner as link selling websites we considered beneficial to add a new column to address this matter. This metric, to some extent, is a subjective one. We noted the ED of each directory with a value between 1 (very low editorial discretion) and 10 (very high quality editorial discretion). We visited few crowded categories from each and every directory to figure out if they are using any sort of editorial discretion or if they publish any listing with those well known "buy now", "the best", "leading SEO company", "guaranteed results" aggressive sales pitches.
- We excluded from our list 3 directories that although were aged directories, they were simple link spam databases and we added others instead.
Some annotations were added:
(1). PegasusDirectory.com was heavily penalized by Google some time ago (source). They also lost their PageRank. However, now the website is doing fine, has a valid PR5 and appears in searches for its own name. Still, many of their homepage linked subcategories have no PageRank.
(2). Elib.org accepts only shopping related websites.
(3). I have added HotvsNot Directory to our list. In the past, they have beed penalized by Google (source1 and source2). I think they fixed their issues since now everything seems normal.
(4). V7's directory looks OK at the first glance but none of their categories has any Page Rank assigned, which in my opinion is not a good sign.
(5). Same story for SevenSeek as for V7. The homepage is PR5, and all categories and subcategories have a PR of -1.
Update 01/14/2013
ask-dir.com has been removed from the list since they doesn't seem to care their website is not functioning. Findelio.com has been added instead.
Update 01/09/2013
(*) pegasusdirectory.com: although it has a nice profile (links, MozRank, PageAuthority) it has only a PR of 2, which is a bit fishy in my opinion. I thing Google penalised them for some reason.
(**) site-sift.com: their PR dropped from 5 to 0. This, alone, is a solid warning that something happened with their website.
(***) ask-dir.com: Currently, their website is bugged, and visitors can see only a bug in their functions.php file. Their PR dropped from 4 to 0 all of a sudden.
Mozrank vs. Pagerank
The Seomoz guys say that mozrank represents "a link popularity score. It reflects the importance of any given web page on the Internet". Many have speculated that mozRank can be compared with Google's well known Page Rank.
As you can see, for the first few top directories the two values are almost the same, but as we go to the list end there is a difference between the two values. There are many things we could, perhaps, discuss in regard to attempting to answer why this difference is noticeable for web directories positioned in the second half of the list. I think that the number of backlinks is the answer: the higher the numbers of links, the two metrics that measure the same (using different methods) are less likely to be different.
Submission (review) price vs. Page Rank
In regard to price, I looked for the lowest possible submission fee for each directory listed. Of course, for featured listings, extra 3-5 backlinks, etc. the price goes higher. Only two directories from this list accept free submissions: DMOZ and Pegasus Directory.
It is hard to say if Yahoo's directory and Business.com are worth their fees of $299 per year each even if we all know that they're some of the best web directories. That's 600 bucks in just a single year. The main question is, will your website really benefit enough from these two links to have a ROI? I certainly would not recommend them for starter websites. Anyway, the decision is yours.
Are people paying for quality?
In my opinion, the Domain Authority value, as it's determined by Seomoz, is actually quite accurate. The more quality links you have for authority websites, the more your website's authority will then grow. It's logical, right?
Now, when it comes to the price that all of us need to pay when we submit our websites to various directories, we really should use some quality metrics and basic common sense. I mean, someone who has a bad directory cannot charge a very high price and call it a "review fee". So, it is best to actually know how you spend your money, even when it comes to the strongest directories.
You might wonder where from I managed to get all this data from in order to create this list of 35 strongest directories. Well, I have to give credit to Aviva's strongest directories and to The Best Web Directories for all of the help and information they were able to provide.