How
Directories Help Search Engines
How Directories Help Search Engines
At the beginning of the web era, users would go to directories
to find sites relevant to their interests. In fact, Yahoo!, the
web's number one destination, started as a directory. Nowadays,
most users rely on search engines, not directories, to find what
they're looking for.
When search engines started to become popular, they relied on web
pages' 'keyword metatags' to determine the topic and relevance of
the page (the keyword metatag is a section within a web page's HTML
code where webmasters can insert words that are relevant to the
page's content). Webmasters discovered that by stuffing their meta
tags with popular search terms repeated hundreds of times, they
could propel their pages to the top of the search results.
Search engines caught up to the abuse and decided to ignore the
meta tags and rely instead on web page copy. Webmasters then started
to overstuff their page copy with popular search terms, often writing
them in the same color as the web page's background, so that they
could be detected by search engines while being invisible to users.
Again, search engines discovered the trick and decided that the
best way to rank a web page's content and its topical relevance
was to rely on inbound links from other pages. The rationale behind
this is that it is much more difficult to influence other people
to link to you than it is to manipulate your own web page elements.
In fact, inbound links are the foundation of Google's Pagerank™
algorithm.
There are several ways to get inbound links, among them writing
articles that include your bylines with a link to your page, exchanging
links, and listing your site in directories.
Listing your sites in good directories is probably the best way
to get quality links that are highly valued by the search engines.
Since directories rely on human editors who enforce strict criteria
to list a site, and since directories organize the information in
highly focused categories, they are an invaluable resource for search
engines to measure the quality and the relevance of a web page.
In summary, directories are important not because they generate
significant traffic (they don't), but because they are given great
importance by the search engines to qualify and rank web pages,
and to determine their topical relevance.
You should definitely list your site with quality directories if
you want to increase your chances of success with the search engines.
About the Author Article by Mario Sanchez:
http://www.theinternetdigest.net . For more search engine tips go
to: http://www.accordmarketing.com/seotips/
|
