Promoting Websites using Directories:

Goal: Generate more hits to a Website by submitting Websites to Directories.

Directories

Directories are organized lists of Websites. Directories are usually created manually.
Search engines are like an index of a book, showing specific pages where words are found. Directories are like the Table of Contents, pointing to chapters and showing outline.
The closest analogy to a directory is Internet Explorer Favorites or Netscape Bookmarks. If one keeps an organized list of favorites and organizes that list into meaningful folders, then that is a Directory.
There are thousands of directories.

Title: The name of the company or Website. This should be the standard business name.
Description: A 25-30 word description without hyperbole or sales. Consider the elevator speech, the organization tag line. Do not repeat the title. It is important to get this right, because it is not easy to change.
Keywords: Some few directories allow keywords. Create a short list of important words with no repetition.

Jerry Yang and David Filo turned their list of Favorites into a successful corporation.

Yahoo! Media Relations : David Filo/Jerry Yang/"Jerry's Guide to the WWW"/Yahoo/"Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle"
Yahoo! Media Relations - Management Team : Now: Co Founders and Chief Yahoos

A large, free, and important directory.

DMOZ - The Open Directory Project Overview : 3.8 M listings / 50K volunteer editors / 460K categories.
Genesis of the Open Directory Project - GnuHoo / NewHoo / ODP / Netscape - directory.mozilla.org / dmoz.org
ODP - Open Directory Project - largest human created taxonomy ever / used by Google
To see if your site has been listed in the DMOZ directory -
- type http://www.whois.sc/dmoz/www.yoursite.com into your browser.
- replace yoursite with your website name

About, Inc. emphasizes quality over quantity and expertise over inclusion.

About - Our Story : where real people help you get whatever you want from the Web.
What You Need to Know About™ About is visited by one in five online users each month
ResultsAbout Editor Selected ResultsAbout ResultsAbout Until search engines can read your mind/have a real person help you.
ResultsAbout Frequently Asked Questions : Editors? $50 for initial production / 20% share of net revenue

Looksmart is a major directory with a pay-per-click business model. Zeal is non commercial and free.

Looksmart - Zeal Overview : pay per click
Zeal.com - Share your knowledge. Set the standard. Non commercial listings / volunteer edited subsidiary / zealots.

www virtual library - oldest catalog of the web, started by Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of html and the web itself.
GO - Used to be Infoseek / Go / Disney / Portal / then dropped and the editors started GoGuides & JoeAnt
GoGuides - Directory with volunteer editors. Submission is pay or play (become an editor).
JoeAnt - Directory with volunteer editors. Submission is pay or play (become an editor).
Gimpsy - Active Sites for Active People - Gimpsy was the name of our hamster pet
Hotrate.com - Search made relevant! Second Generation Directory Search Engine! (Whatever that means). Must play.
Xoron Search - self proclaimed "the Worlds largest Web Directory". Submit and wait or play.
Skaffe - the International Directory

Beaucoup Super Search - search engines and directories
Search Engine Colossus - links to search engines and directories from 195 countries
Search Engines Directory