SUBMIT 2.0

There was a time when website directories were a great way to get your site noticed by surfers and search engines. In fact, until quite recently, many SEOs and internet marketing professionals would recommend a campaign of acquiring directory links for any new site. The links would establish a flow of organic traffic as well as providing a much needed early boost to the site’s place in search engine results. Unfortunately, these days, most SEOs and marketers would agree that most web directories have little to offer other website owners. While there are still notable exceptions, like the Open Directory Project, few directories have the pagerank or viewership to really make a traffic impact.

The internet provides access to an incredible volume of information, but all of this information inadvertently creates a problem of organization. When the web was younger, directories were an effective way to organize the available sites. For many years, there were only a few dozen or few hundred sites for a specific topic or subtopic. The first Google index from 1998 had a few million unique URLs, but by 2008 they had spidered and indexed more than a trillion pages. A directory would need to come up with a lot of categories and subdivisions to even scratch the surface of that number!

Since so many sites can focus on the same general topics, directory designers were forced to choose between putting more links on a page or creating multiple pages for a single topic. This means that at any given time, a lot of sites will fall to places where they aren’t easily found or distinguished from the competition in any meaningful way. In addition, many directory scripts simply place links in the chronological order they are added - and there is usually no consideration to which sites are the most popular or useful when determining the prominent link locations. Some directories have compensated with extensive manual review, but this limits the volume of sites that can be approved.

Yet in many ways, the modern social bookmarking website is similar to the older web directories. The primary difference, however, is that the members of a bookmarking site can contribute votes and comments about any link that has been submitted. This helps the most popular links find their way to the top of the front page - even if that effect is only temporary. In addition, bookmarking sites are more accepting of multiple links to deep URLs on the same domain. Once a site is submitted, the other organizational factors of a bookmarking site aren’t all that different from more traditional directories. Indeed, the main advantage is the way users can add to the evaluation and moderation of submissions.

As the web grows and evolves, new methods and algorithms will be needed to sort the massive volumes of information available online. For now though, the social bookmarking site is a favorite among both surfers and webmasters alike - and for good reason!

Source: Ezinearticles

Filed under: Social Bookmarking