Similarly to desktop directories, where you gather files in a directory based on some criterion, Web directories are just enormous collections of links to sites, arranged in different categories. As the name implies, web directories are directories where different resources are gathered.
Web directories (or as they are better known – search directories) existed before the search engines, especially Google, became popular. Naming all Google alternatives would be a long list and it is outside the scope of this article but just to be a little more precise about what alternatives exist, we cannot skip SEO instruments like posting to blogs and forums or paid advertisements. It is true that specialized search engines will not bring you as many visitors, as if you were topping Google but the quality of these visitors is extremely high. Specialized search engines and portals have the advantage that the audience they attract consists of people who are interested in a particular topic and if this is your topic, you can get to your target audience directly. Search directories might sound so pre-Google but submitting to the right directories might prove better than optimizing for MSN, for example. You could also optimize your site for (or at least submit to) some of the other search engines (Lycos, Excite, Netscape, etc.) but having in mind that they altogether hardly have over 3-5% of the Web search traffic, do not expect much.Īnother alternative is to submit to search directories (also known as Web directories) and specialized search engines. Yahoo! and MSN (to a lesser degree) can bring you enough visitors, though sometimes it is virtually impossible to optimize for the three of them at the same time because of the differences in their algorithms. The first alternative to Google is obvious – optimize for the other major search engines, if you have not done it already. Maybe we should mention here the ultimate SEO nightmare – being banned from Google, when you simply can't use Google (or not at least until you are readmitted to the club) and no matter if you like it or not, you need to have a look about possible alternatives. Or sometimes, the price you need to pay (not literally but in terms of effort and time) to top Google and keep there is too high. There is nothing wrong in it and it is most logical, having in mind that topping Google is the lion's share in Web popularity but very often, no matter what you do, topping Google does not happen. SEO experts spend most of their time optimizing for Google and occasionally one or two other search engines.