Quadrille - 1:51 am on Nov 27, 2006 (gmt 0)

They are declining.

Last year (or was it the year before?), directories became the flavour of the month, when people sussed their linking power.

There was a rush to create 'easy to use' off-the-shelf directories, and many thousands sprang up. 98% were nothing more than link exchanges.

Then the SEs banned a few, and devalued links from the rest (including ODP), and the gold rush slowed.

It would have stopped dead, but a new form of abuse arose; 'made for adsense directories', which included many of the existing c*** directories.

Directories are still worth submitting to (especially niche directories), but search for Quality Directories; and learn to tell the difference!

It's not hard; avoid those that demand reciprocal links, and those that feature adverts where the listings should be, and you'll have eliminated 80%. Those that insist on an email address with no privacy policy will lose another 5% :)

Good Luck!

[edited by: Quadrille at 1:52 am (utc) on Nov. 27, 2006]