Internet directory - By: Archan Ghosal

An internet directory is a website which enlists other websites or services in various categories and sub categories. Viewers seeking information browse categories and find the required service they are looking for. In a good internet directory they may have several hundreds of categories listing several thousands of websites.

Every internet directory website keeps up a quality standard. Webmasters willing to enlist their websites in such a site send their website details via submission form. After receiving that information a human editor of the dir site manually review those submissions. If a website is found suitable then editor enlists it otherwise editor rejecting that submission.

Search engine vs. Internet directory
Today most of the internet viewers collect their required information through search engines. Search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. enlist their search result according to the search key (i.e. search string insert by the user in the search text box) and the qualities of the pages. The difference between a search engine (SE) and an internet directory are,

SE ranks the web pages by means of automated software while a directory qualifies pages by human editors. So information enlisted in a directory is more authentic.

SE enlists WebPages according to the match found for search keys. But list of directories are general type. So a search engine can give narrower information.

Since SE works with automated software so they can handle larger information and regularly update them than a directory.

To enlist a website in a directory webmaster has to ask directory to review its website while working of most search engine is automatic.

Bad users always try to mislead search engines by various unfair means to enlist their websites top of the list to draw more traffic to their websites. But this practice will never work for a web directory. So search engines put great importance to the websites listed in a quality web directory.

Niche directories
Apart from the general internet directories there are also niche directories which gaining their popularity in the internet today. Niche directories are websites which enlist websites of a particular topic or region. Telephone directory, car directory, regional directory are few examples of niche directory. People seeking information and resources relay on those directory sites to get it.

Free vs. paid directory
As I said search engines put great importance to the sites listed in quality internet directories so webmaster send their websites in internet directories to improve their SE ranking. Since number of websites is increasing day by day so it becomes very difficult for the human editors to review every websites. To enlist a website in a quality directory like DMOZ webmaster may have to wait ten years or even more. To handle this problem many web directories like Yahoo directory accept paid submission. This method actually filters out many small budget quality websites from being listed which reduces the quality of directory.

About the Author

Author of this article is a web developer. You can find many free PHP scripts such as free blog script, PHP contact form, guestbook script, etc. articles such as PHP cookie, in author's website. Recently he is developing a web host directory website where viewers can conveniently search their preferred web hosting service

Article Directory Source: http://www.articlerich.com/profile/Archan-Ghosal/184293

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