How to judge a web directory

What is the criteria for judging a web directory as to whether it is of quality or otherwise? The various criteria on which we can judge whether a directory is of quality or otherwise are as follows:

1. Google PageRank: A PageRank is a numeric value that represents how important a page is on the web. This is a criteria allotted by Google. It depends on two factors namely "On Page" and "Off Page". Basically we are able to judge a directory on the basis of its PR. The PR should be a decent one. It does not mean that we are avoiding the zero PR directory sites. Today's PR0 web directory may be tomorrow's PR5/PR6. Basically a directory site should at least be cached by Google and have some decent PR.

2. Spider-friendly links: Spider-friendly links are the links which can be spidered by the search engine robots e.g., Googlebot is the robot of Google. It means that the web directory should provide search engine-friendly links which does not contain characters such as "?" or "&". These are clearly an example of dynamic link as they generally pass some query to the database and gather the information from there and shows these in the result page. Avoid directories which contain such types of URL as it does not bring any SEO benefit. Another criteria for a spider-friendly link is that the link should not be a redirected link, i.e., if we move the mouse over the link, the url of that site should be clearly visible in the status bar. For this, we can also check the source of that particular page as to whether the web directory publishes direct links or otherwise.

3. Easy submissions procedure: The submissions procedure of that directory site should be as easy as possible. Some directories have a lengthy submission procedure which sometimes irritates us. Some of the directories require user login before we can submit any link. So the submission procedure might not be complex enough.

4. Well-organized categories: The categories of that web directory should be well-organized, meaning that it does not contain too many or too little categories. There should be a balance between the number of categories. The categories should also be arranged properly, for example the sub-category "Food" does not come under category "Directories".

5. Contains quality links: Generally the links in any category should be of quality, i.e., does not contain links to bad neighborhood sites. Bad neighborhood sites are websites such as warez, adult, pharmacy or gambling etc. If the web directory does contain some websites which are in the adult or gambling nice, then it should be populated in a specific categoryonly.

6. Age of the web directory: One should check the creation date of that web directory to find out its age. We can check how long a web directory has been around by querying its whois domain registrar information, using online tools such as www.whois.sc. The rule is OLDER IS GOLDEN, therefore we should try to give emphasize on older web directories. This does not mean that we should avoid newer web diectories, as eventually they too will age with time.

7. Alexa Rank: Although this is not such a big deal and sometimes even overhyped, an Alexa rank does measure the criteria of a directory by informing us how much traffic is the web directory getting. We can check the alexa rank at www.searchbliss.com/alexa-rank-tool.htm

So based on the factors above, we can easily judge whether it is worth the trouble to submit in a particular web directory or otherwise.