rohitj - 10:15 pm on Mar 8, 2006 (gmt 0)

I get the feeling that some people think that a search engine algorithm may dictate what is popular or what people see, and the newest trends. Granted, getting a ton of traffic from google or yahoo wouldn't hurt, but the bottomline is what succeeds are the things that help people the most. If an algorithm chooses not to place value on a directory for whatever reason, that's one thing--but you can't move to the conclusion that, consequently, directories are going to disappear or that people listed in directories won't gain benefit.

In fact many "experts" believe we're going to shift to niche directories for information. It was even mentioned here recently. The fact that you can go to a site and get a bunch of links exactly catered to that topic (completely reviewed by a human who may even be a professional in that field) is something that algorithms will aspire to do but won't do perfectly. The only way to get it 100 percent perfect is by hand with sites like directories that have editors. There are definately flaws, like biases towards some sites or integrating affiliate programs, but that's where visitors need to perform their own due diligence on such information.