Powdork - 8:01 pm on Feb 15, 2005 (gmt 0)

It depends at what level you are at and the expertise of the editor(s). A directory with an expert in the field the directory covers can be very useful. It drops off from there. The larger directories in many cases have lost this interaction with the categories they list. DMOZ is severely lacking in experts for most of its categories. About.com claims to have experts, but in most cases the pages I see are affiliate laden scraped junk. There are many directories in which the listees enter their own site information and these in general act like serps anyway so they lack unique content. And of course there are the ever-present scraper directories that buy up any domain name remotely related to a keyword and regurgitate adsense and other ppc with no content whatsoever.

So what would this tell Google about the likelihood of a directory being useful.
1. A directory with a top level category having to do with keyword. What I mean is if you search for 'mytown' then a directory with a top level cat being 'mytown' would probably better satisfy the surfer than a directory where mytown is a subcategory because there is more likely to be expert info regarding mytown.

2. A high unique text to outbound link ratio may be indicative of quality.

3. A high unique text (and image kb?) to adsense code ratio could indicate quality.

4. And the aforementioned use of unchanged basic scripts could be a red flag for lack of quality.