Directories: Still Influencing Search Engines in 2010
Everybody is confident with using search engines in 2010, since they allow us to discover things rather speedily. This is essential, but search engine results aren’t moderated by actual people, instead it’s done by an algorithm. So why would that be remarkable? Imagine you are browsing for a hotel in Liverpool as an example. One would type this keyphrase into Bing (for example), then a number of results would be shown. How do you know whether these results are trusted if they haven’t been been filtered by people? Here’s the answer: search engines use human-administered online directories as a primary filter.
Directories still play a part on the web, and the top-quality directories are necessarily human edited. A person may recognize that (for instance) : “that restaurant has been awarded a particular rating for cleanliness and having certain standards, that’s a rather encouraging signal”. A well-known online directory receives many submissions on a daily basis. An administrator will look into these entries, and if the official is happy that the quality of the entry is of a particular standard, it is appended to the website directory. This is the reason why Google still loves online directories. Both the Yahoo! directory and dmoz.org are utilized by search engines as filters to discover the trustworthiness of a website - whether it’s listed in dmoz.org / Yahoo! directory or not, as they are human-edited and have strict guidelines.
So do not minimise the importance of online directories just because almost everyone uses search engines to discover websites. A directory with rigorous guidelines can be a great measuring device as to how trusted a website is. If you are a website owner, also look to get your site listed in a niche directory, like a gardening directory, a fashion directory, or a health directory.