All webmasters know more or less about Google Page Rank. For those who are unaware –ideally, it is a score given by Google to every website to and measured on a scale of 1-10. Despite many controversies and lots of uninformed people/webmaster denouncing PR as being a mere number, Googe Technology notes that it is in the heart of all Google ranking. A higher PR website is said to be of higher quality.

According to commonly believed notion- Google assigns PR to a website based on the total value of votes received from other sites which in turn means summation of PR value of all inbound links to a particular website.

Recently, Google has been indexing contents almost instantly (Matt Cutts says “Minty Fresh Index” ) and crawling links regularly. It is reflected in the change of Google search results that seems to change all the time and which is known as Google dance. It is also believed by many webmasters that, PR Update is dynamic and is always adjusted internally. But Google exports the PR value to its toolbar only once every 3-4 months. Hence, every toolbar export brings in a lot of excitements, joy and heartburn among SEO and webmaster community. Most believe that, it is the result of the link-building and content development work put into the last 10-15 weeks. The previous two toolbar exports happened on 25^th January and 27^th April. But Alas! This time, the toolbar export is taking too long and the community has gone from excited to impatient to a state of surrendering their fate to Google!

So why is the toolbar PR export taking so long this time around (already the longest period in the toolbar export history)? Well there might be lots of reasons in my view.

1. Matt Cutts used his blog to get feedback from webmasters with the post “How To Report Paid Links”. It is often believed that Google uses him to communicate effectively with webmasters. There has been lots of hue-n-cry about it – but the fact remains that Google got what they wanted – Feedback. Based on that feedback – they have changed all their algorithms and are testing them.
2. Due to new Page Rank algorithm, Google is trying it out with the current PR update and testing it. This is very evident with some selective sites getting updated and most sites not getting updated. Once Google feels their new algorithms have passed all tests and should work perfectly the way they want them to work, the toolbar export will be released. will to wait till that happens.

Possible Outcome with the New Algo:

As is the case, Google will discount lots of paid links (as they might deem any) and there will be huge fluctuations of PR of sites and of course SERPs. So far, it has been quite easy to manipulate PR till PR6 as webmasters can make out how many of what PR inbound links are necessary to attain a particular PR. That kind of Page Rank manipulation will be harder.

Another possible fall-out will be that of raising the standard of PR. What I mean is, no longer will 4 PR7 inbound links be enough for gaining PR6.

Google might also bring in content factor in its Page Rank valuation. So far, there has been loud calls to omit Page Rank completely from Google’s system as anybody with little quality contents could get high Page Rank and hence SERPs.

All these will change Page Rank & SERPs hierarchy and many SEOs who have developed their business on Paid Link model will loose their jobs- there will be more heart burns.

Disclaimer: All these views are purely mine- on the basis of my study.

Traffic, Traffic, Traffic! That’s what all websites and webmaster want to generate more and more revenue online – whether from online sales or Ad Sense or by selling advertisement. Without traffic, no income is possible online.

Of late I can see a lot of debates on webmasters forums and blogs in regard to relevancy, usefulness and effectiveness of web directories in search engine optimization. Many people dismiss web directories as being mere link-farms! They argue that – web directories do not send much traffic to sites listed in them. The also accuse directories of selling page rank, of listing low quality – spammy sites if they pay the review fee. Very serious allegations indeed!

So, is it true that web directories lost their significance in SEO world after the emergence of viral marketing, press release campaigns, e-mail marketing etc. as major SEO techniques that bring huge traffic?

My answer is a BIG NO. Web directories are still the most reliable, trustable and efficient sources of optimizing a new site. They are still the most helpful resources to a new site for quick indexing and durable search engine ranking.

I this competitive world, it is next to impossible to get links from sites that deal in the same niche as most site owners fear that if they help another site, it might outrank them and hence causing a decrease in business volume. On the other-hand, web directories are sites that can list any website on categories arranged by subjects and therefore, websites, whatever their niche may be, get a relevant link that is so much scarce. And most of those links are permanent.

Now, the question is – if directories are so good – why are many webmasters and SEO professionals raising questions against them?

Well, being involved in the industry for sometime now, I have done an in-depth analysis of the situation and came up with some disturbing facts. I have found that all the allegations mentioned above are true!

As in every sphere of our life, there are lots of vultures, money sharks on the web too. Their main motive is to grab a few dollars by hook or by crook.

So who are they?

They are the members of Quick Buck Crew – a term used to refer those who are destroying the name of the web directory industry by their malicious manipulation of the good vibes of web directories which was earned by the hard work of quality web directories like BOTW, Alive, Aviva and many other high quality directories.

Their Modus-Operandi is very simple. They buy expired or unused domains with high PR and then install directory scripts on them. Then they advertise that their web directory has so and so page rank –and it is very cheap to list.

Whatever people say on the face, it is a truth that- most webmasters and SEO professionals look for high PR directories to list sites, And due to these circumstances, the whole industry is facing a crisis.

What baffles me is the fact that even experienced webmasters and hard core SEO professionals fail to differentiate between a quality high PR web directory and a duplicate web directory that is up there to con those self proclaimed experts!

It is a very basic job to differentiate between an established website (of late those conmen have been installing blogs and other sites on those condemned domains) and a duplicate one. Just go to Iwebtool or Linkvendor and use the Visual PR tool. If the sub-pages, categories of the said site has any sort of PR in inner-categories, pages (it does not matter what PR inner-pages have) – then VOILA! It’s a genuine website running for sometime. If it has only home page PR and no PR on inner-pages –the –BEWARE – you are dealing with a CONMAN –duplicate site.

Regarding allegations of web directories not sending traffic – I would like to ask those who say such things – WHAT IS THE PRIMARY ROLE OF A WEB DIRECTORY? DO YOU CONSIDER IT TO BE A LOCAL TELEPHONE INDEX OR YELLOW PAGES?

The answer is clearly A BIG NO. A web directory is neither a telephone directory now a yellow pages index. Its primary role is to help a site get indexed with search engines and help you rank high in them. Its secondary role is to provide selective catalog of quality websites listed by categories and subjects. So if some one thinks that a web directory would provide all the best web resources on the net, then Google will be out of market!!! as nobody would search Google if they find all their resources on a web directory.

Still –there are some directories that send exceptional traffic to listed sites. I recently checked the most popular sites one of the best directories online – Alive Directory — and the figure is astonishing -

Please check yourself. -

http://www.alivedirectory.com/index.php?list=top

How many visitors have those sites received and for how much? How much does it cost for to get visitor using Ad Wrods? How much SEO professional charges for marketing campaigns? Think carefully an calculate the benefits!

Now think !!- if you list in 50 quality web directories and take into account the direct traffic accumulated from them in an year –and the cost — you get your answer. Those traffic are flowing slowly but on a constant basis — all the year through. And they would keep flowing months after months –year after years.

Are we forgetting something here?

YES OFCOURSE.

We are forgetting the most important thing to list in web directories –the SERPs benefit you get. If you optimize with those 50 top quality directories -you are sure to rank on top for many keywords related to your site. And how much traffic you get from search engines?? Do you count that??

And while Adwords, viral marketing and other means of traffic generation need constant work, one has to just list once with a directory and pay a nominal review fee. If the site is of quality, then it has every chance that it gets listed on the said directory and keeps getting traffic years after years –albeit slow.

On the other hand – true quality directories could boost a site’s search engine ranking beyond imaginations. Please remember, no single directory can do it alone – not even DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, Business.com or even Google Directory. It more like “Little drops of water makes an Ocean together”: D

So web directories still ROCK – they are highly useful, effective and relevant –

Forget nay Sayers – get your strategy right, make a budget and try out my list of Authority Web Directories. The list is a personal one made on through research on all of them.

And please don’t forget my own Best Internet Resource - . Although it is still not in the top league – I can assure you that – it will join them in the near future.

PS: Just wanted to share my own technique of how I judge a quality web directory.

1. First thing I do is check the home-page PR. I like directories PR4+
2. Second thing (most important) – I check the Visual PR of the said directory. It does not matter what PR the pages have, if they have some sort of PR, then it is an established directory.
3. I then check its backlinks –and see what sites are linking to it. I use Linkvendor tool to do it.
4. I then check the listed sites in the directory. I look for the quality of the previously listed sites. If the directory has low quality sites listed – I avoid them.
5. Another very important thing to judge about a web directory is – how often the site is being indexed and if the page/category you are looking for is indexed. I believe that- a high quality site gets indexed more frequently than a low quality site.

Please also see what Matt Cuts has to say about quality web directories.

Sorry for such a long post – but being a career academician – I don’t know how to shorten my posts. I promise you – I’ll try my best to shorten my future posts.

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Hello Folks

Welcome again. In pursuit of providing high quality web directory resources to webmasters, I am proud to announce the acqusition of Noflux Web Directory by BIR Directory Network.

About the directory-

Registered with NameCheap

Date Created: 03/21/2007

Expiry Date : 03/21/2008

Script: phpLD 2.1

Google Pagerank: 2/10

Now - when you visit the directory -you will find that its just a normal web directory taking up web-space.

So why did I acquire a simple directory than create one with new domain?

Well, in my view - the directory has a lot of potentials. Some of its inner-categories have a PR of 1 (so the directory has been online for some-time which is a major factor for me) .

In my view, Google , is improving its algorithym and giving more weight to older sites. Besides is is really a very hard job to create a directory from SCRATCH with so many categories to be created!

So it saved lots of my time — BONUS being a slightly older domain and nice little PR.

Due to my present pre-occupation with the development and improvement of my other directories, I’ll not be able to concentrate on this directory till 2008. But hey, I am training a protege . If his learning progress is fast enough — then I could finish my existing assignments with other directories well ahead of schedule and can lay my hand on this one quicker than I plan and make this site a true quality directory too.

This brings me to a question of what is a Quality Web Directory?? With so much hue-n-cry going on against web directories in the SEO world -and in the industry itself, I think I better express my views here rather than creating a separate post for it.

In my view, a True Quality Web Directory should have the following traits -

• Unique and easily understandable and browsable Category Structure properly arranged by subjects.
• It should have stringent editorial guidelines and those guidelines must be followed strictly while listing a site. ( The guidelines or TOS should be easily accessible to the webmasters who want to submit their sites).
• All the listings must be of high quality and provide true value to normal visitors.
• It should have a small support forum to deal with clients swiftly.
• It should have a blog to provide additional resources and contents to all webmasters and general surfers.
• Another important point to note is - how frequently does Google bots crawl on the site. A high quality directory should be darling of the bots and they would crawl it almost all the time. The frequent a directory is crawled by bots, the higher its quality in Google’s eyes.
• In addition to above, a the design or look of a directory is also important. I believe we are in the Service Industry - to serve webmasters and surfers alike. During my coaching classes in the Service Industry ( Former Entertainment Executive) - I was taught that - ” First impression is the lasting impression. The first 10 seconds are the most important in the industry. If the prospective clients are impressed in those 10 seconds, you have a 1oo% confirmed client.”

Thats what I call a quality web directory.

At present, I am trying to create/develop my existing directories into quality directories as has been stated above. I’ll do the same with my new acquisition too. It might take some time - but listing in it will give webmasters an investment into the future. I’ll do basic SEO and promotion on this directory - but as usual I’ll not go bersek with it. I don’t believe in anything that is QUICK or INSTANT. The quicker you rise, the quicker you fall. So my web strategy is to grow naturally. If income is less, NO PROBLEM at all. My life do not depend on my web income. Its more of a passion than a profession.

I believe a directory (all other websites as well) - must be developed at the first place.

If anybody has any ISSUE - regarding this directory or listing in it. please do let me know.

Regards