A million dollar question with no satisfactory answers! The responses to the much debated topic differ in variety ranging from “Its crap” to “It has done wonders for my site”! Directory submissions are one of the simplest and most effective means of getting some worthwhile back links for a site and to get it indexed by the search engines. Cost effective but time consuming, the best results can be achieved if the submissions are done manually and by experts.
The trick to rewarding results lies in picking the most relevant directories that are well accepted, indexed and have a high Page Rank. The most important aspect is where exactly you submit to in a directory. Random or general submission to just any page in a directory is not only useless but also dangerous from ranking perspective. Google algorithms are capable of discounting unrelated and illogical submissions. So you don’t just have to land and get accepted by a great directory, but also need to submit to the precise contextual page related to your website. In case the directory does not host an appropriate page, you can either post to the most relevant page you can find; or request the directory to create a recommended page or else simply move on to another directory where you can find exactly what you are looking for.
The quality of submissions also needs to be supplemented by quantity. A good 500 to 1000 submissions over a period of a few months can easily get you a PR of 3 or 4. The results become tough to achieve when you aim higher. That is not to suggest that directory submissions do not work when targeting higher rankings for your website, it just needs more endeavor and some more SEO techniques must be applied concurrently for an overall productive sustainable result.
Some might query about what has altered from a few years back when directory submissions used to work wonders for their website? What changed was that these submissions became hugely popular due to quick effectual results that came up within a short time. Websites were able to get great SERPs with submissions and made good money; and where there’s money, there’s abuse too! Many incompetent directories out to make a quick buck started popping up all over the place. A mind boggling variety for every conceivable purpose was dished out to the gullible. You could not differentiate between a really sound directory and a guaranteed listings directory! People got bewildered between the plethora of choices ranging from free listing, paid submissions, assured or no-guarantee submissions, relevant or immaterial, and the superiority of these directories. Basically directory submissions moved from being something quite relevant to manipulating search engine spiders. A shrewd Google soon wizened up to the trick, made its algorithms exacting and started disregarding worthless directories and directory link farms that distributed links like candies! The result was some directories got banned, black listed and the website listings dropped or became stagnant. Panic spread in the online world and directory submissions lost their sheen.
The truth is, directory listings are still very useful and must be a part of your overall SEO strategy. You just need to pick your directories cautiously, submit to the correct pages and have patience. If the submissions are made by experts who can hand pick the best directories and submit according to the set procedure, then the site rankings are definitely going to get enhanced. But still, with mounting competition, sole dependence on one particular approach is not enough and other SEO tools too must be applied for good measure.



