Online Directories That Pass the SEO Quality Test
There’s no question that the world of SEO has changed dramatically in recent years. For all but the most niche keywords, gone are the days when a heavy dose of on-page optimization could achieve high rankings. Today, it’s largely about your site’s overall “legitimacy” and influence – measured by the number and quality of backlinks – that is – the number AND quality of websites linking to your site.
So… for a company seeking higher rankings (and who isn’t?), it’s important that link building be a core part of your strategy. While editorial sites with high domain authority (sites like The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, etc.) reign supreme in the world of backlinks, there is still a place for online directories. They can play an important role in creating backlinks and their listings are often indexed by Google and others. For this reason, I always recommend that directories play some role in a good link building strategy.
But there are a couple challenges:
- There are thousands of directories out there. It can be incredibly time consuming to go through the process of researching each and submitting. That’s not a good use of your time AND being too aggressive with your directory submission efforts can actually hurt you.
- According to Moz, about 20% of the directories out there are in some form of hot water with Google. Many are just low quality, spammy link networks. You really don’t want to be associated with them!
Higgins Marketing Group recently went through the directory submission process for our own business, and we’d like to save you some SERIOUS time and potential aggravation by sharing our list of online directories (our submissions). This list of 13 paid and 25 free directories represent (as of Feb 2015) online directories possessing a Domain Authority (DA) of 50 or higher and are currently indexed by Google.
Hoping you find this useful… and wishing you higher rankings!
PAID ONLINE DIRECTORIES
# | Directory Name | URL | DA |
| 1 | Abilogic | http://www.abilogic.com/ | 59 |
| 2 | Alive Directory | http://www.alivedirectory.com/ | 54 |
| 3 | Aviva Directory | http://www.avivadirectory.com/ | 64 |
| 4 | Best of the Web (BOTW) | http://botw.org/ | 79 |
| 5 | Business.com | https://ccm.business.com | 80 |
| 6 | Directory Journal | http://www.dirjournal.com/ | 58 |
| 7 | Ezilon.com | http://www.ezilon.com/ | 67 |
| 8 | Gimpsy | http://www.gimpsy.com/ | 52 |
| 9 | Go Guides | http://www.goguides.org/ | 55 |
| 10 | Jasmine Directory | http://www.jasminedirectory.com/ | 60 |
| 11 | Joeant | http://www.joeant.com/ | 60 |
| 12 | Skaffe.com | http://www.skaffe.com/ | 50 |
| 13 | Starting Point | http://www.stpt.com/directory/ | 75 |
FREE ONLINE DIRECTORIES
# | Directory Name | URL | DA |
| 1 | A List Sites | 52 | |
| 2 | A1 Web Directory | http://www.a1webdirectory.org | 56 |
| 3 | ABC Directory | http://www.abc-directory.com/ | 58 |
| 4 | Add Your Links Manual Directory | 57 | |
| 5 | DMOZ | 96 | |
| 6 | Exact Seek | http://www.exactseek.com | 78 |
| 7 | Gain Web | http://www.gainweb.org/ | 51 |
| 8 | High Rank Directory | http://www.highrankdirectory.com | 56 |
| 9 | Hot vs. Not | http://www.hotvsnot.com/ | 77 |
| 10 | Info Tiger | 61 | |
| 11 | InfoListing Directory | http://info-listings.com/ | 51 |
| 12 | Intel Seek | 54 | |
| 13 | Jayde | http://www.jayde.com/ | 68 |
| 14 | LDMStudi Web Directory | 61 | |
| 15 | Marketing Internet Directory | http://www.marketinginternetdirectory.com/ | 56 |
| 16 | PR Web Directory | 64 | |
| 17 | Ranking Website Directory | http://www.rdirectory.net/ | 66 |
| 18 | Skoobe | http://www.skoobe.biz/ | 53 |
| 19 | So Much | http://www.somuch.com | 71 |
| 20 | Submission Web Directory | http://www.submissionwebdirectory.com | 61 |
| 21 | T Section Directory | http://www.tsection.com/ | 64 |
| 22 | Thales Free Website Directory | http://thalesdirectory.com/ | 58 |
| 23 | The SEO King | http://www.theseoking.com/ | 55 |
| 24 | VieSearch | http://viesearch.com/ | 63 |
| 25 | Yahoo Basic Directory | 100 |
