Directories are an old way of promoting websites. These days many directories have been abandoned and because there is so many of them with so many listings, most internet users hardly look in them for actual sites. The only reason why directories should be used today is for the SEO benefit from the backlink.

Some directories use redirects or nofollows making them worthless for passing on pagerank. You should only bother submitting to directories that put a normal static link under your website’s title. If it is a dynamic url, i.e http://www.example.com/?=url%3454, something outside the normal url form, then it is using a redirect and is worthless for passing on pagerank. You should also check the source code to make sure they aren’t sneaking in a nofollow tag.

Another thing is how the directories are structured. If they put 50 websites on each page, their pagerank passing value will be very low. If you plan on doing a reciprocal or paying for a directory submission, make sure each page has only a few outgoing links. Too many outgoing links causes each link’s pagerank passing value to be “diluted”. Sometimes it’s coined “link juice”. These days, its hard getting into a high pagerank directory without paying, so if it has a pagerank 4 or higher, then that is good enough for a reciprocal, as long as it’s a quality backlink.

The best way to submit to directories is to type in all your information in notepad and then for each directory, cut n paste into the forms. It will be much quicker and easier on the hands to do this dozens of times by just cut n pasting. You will find that most of your websites will not be entered after submission because most directories these days are backlogged, more strict with websites, and/or abandoned. I wouldn’t spend too much time on directory submission though. There is many other ways to get quickly get a few backlinks with less effort.