PageRank vs. Alexa Rank as sign of Directory Importance/Usefulness

Opinions Please

[MatthewHamilton]

Was wondering which of the two above metrics was seen as more important by SEO practitioners - personally I have been using Alexa to rank directory strength/importance...

[Webwork]

When it comes to a directory, discussions of Pagerank tend to 1) only relate to homepage PR, not internal page PR; and, 2) the "issue" of PR or Alexa or "strength" tends to be an issue of concern mostly for those attempting to market their directory.

For my money, 99.9% of the PR/AR or strength discussion is hen-clucking.

More important factors:

• The editorial quality, and therefore utility, of the websites listed.
  
• The quality of the listings themselves, i.e., is the information in some way more useful than the what's found in the raw SERPs.
  
• Niche or limited vertical focus directories beats general directories.
  
• The directory sends filtered, pre-qualified traffic.
  
• Free listings beats paid listings, but free only goes so far in supporting quality, which leads to a consideration of . .
  
• Volume and placement of ads competing for attention of directory visitors.
  
• The depth of the directory's listings.
  
• The overall professionalism of the directory "as a website".
  

[MatthewHamilton]

Thanks for the reply. I agree and it is my long held position that as Google etc. search criteria improves that quite simply content - and top content - is king and that however many billions of pages the spiders crawl that Google's stated goal of connecting search results with relevancy (as it improves) will always lead back to this. I simply meant though which of the two is a more useful generic/catch-all method for loose value assigning - at a glance..?

[freelistfool]

I usually try to find high traffic directories in my niche based on Alexa. Then do a google search for some of the text on the page where I'll be listed. If the page shows up in the results there is a better chance the directory is getting traffic from the search engines (and not just webmasters submitting their sites). If you get listed there you'll see a bit of traffic to your site and I've found these links help quite a bit in the SERPs.