Types of Web Directories

A web directory is a listing of other website links classified under different categories. Submission of your website links to the web directories can help you get target customers thereby enhancing your business. Submission of your website links to the web directories is not so easy. All the website links that are submitted to the web directory are first reviewed and verified by the directory editors. It is only when certain criteria are met by your website in terms of content and quality your link gets approved to be listed in the directory. Types of various web directories are listed below.

1. Free Submission Directories – These are the ones which are free and do not charge you for link review or link listing.
2. Paid Submission Directories – These are the ones which charge you either one time or recurring time for link listing.
3. Paid For Inclusion Directories – These are bidding web directories which give higher listing to those website links that pay higher. The more you pay, more is your prominence in the listing, thereby, increasing the possibility of clicks on that listing by the web directory visitors.
4. General Directories – These web directories accept submission of links to all kinds of websites. These directories can further contain categories and sub categories. For example, a web directory can have category of ‘Shopping’, ‘Cookery’, ‘Travel’ etc. The cookery category might have further sub categories as ‘North Indian Recipes’, ‘South Indian Recipes’ etc. These categories might have further sub categories as ‘Breakfast Recipes’, ‘Evening Snacks Recipes’ etc. The general directories target a larger audience.
5. Niche Directories – These are the ones which specialize in a specific area. For example, there can be specific web directories listing links to health & wellness sites, shopping sites, cookery sites, travel and tour websites etc. The Niche directories target only a smaller segment of audience but hold more value to the visitors.
6. Regional Directories – These directories list only those websites which belong to a specific geographic location or a demographic. For example, an Indian regional directory will only list websites of those businesses that are based in India, or that provide a service specifically for businesses or individuals in India. One such regional Indian directory is ‘dirIndia.org’ which is gradually taking up as one of the most sought after business directories in India.
7. Article Directories – These slightly differ from the general web directories in the sense that in these entire articles are submitted instead of links. They also have categories and sub categories. Similar to article directories are the blog and podcast directories.