A very difficult question. Google seems to have caused a major shift in how users navigate the web. It is mainly by search engine rather than directory. MSN and Yahoo would problably be well up in the running, perhaps second and third after Google. Based purely on referrals from one of my sites the order of the list would be:
Google
Yahoo
MSN
After this the situation becomes murky. Altavista seems to be actively spidering Irish webspace again but referrals from AV are not as high as they once were. The numerical gap between the referrals from the big three and the other Irish directories is significant (as in the difference between thousands of referrals and under twenty.) The big three would account for over 30K referrals per month. This data is purely subjective but I would be very surprised to see any Irish directory even approaching the traffic of the big three.
Some directories may seem big but that is often because they have not pruned their indices keeping live links and dropping dead ones. The Irish directory market is a tough one but most irish directory sites are run as an add-on for the core business of the companies running them rather than as pure play directories. The main test for link rot for Irish directories is to check whether it contains a like for webireland.com (Once an Irish internet magazine's website and now a hard core porn site) or searchingireland.com (once a metasearch engine and now a domain owned by cybersquatter Ultimate Search).
Regards...jmcc
Some of the Irish Directory/SE Players
BrowseIreland.com:
This directory is active and has an associated discussion forum. In terms of links it has about 12400 or so. However it does not actively check that the sites still exist.
Niceone.com:
Niceone.com is one of the older Irish links directories though it seems to be declining a bit. It had, at one stage, approval on submissions in that the people running it verified the sites before including them. It still apparently gets traffic but I don't think that I've seen many referrals from the directory. A lot of house adverts for Volta.net but very few others.
Irishsearch.net/search.ie:
This is a Gossamer links based directory and seems to have an active audience. The links are user submitted rather than relying on an ODP feed which makes it exceptional in that it is building up its links from scratch.
Indexireland.com:
Thunderstone based search engine with web directory. US based and provides clean results. Not sure of the traffic on this SE/directory. US based but does not have a very high profile in Ireland.
irelandonthenet.ie
Comprehensive directory of Irish websites. Not sure about the traffic levels.
WhoisIreland.com:
Not so much a directory as the reference site for Irish websites and domains. It has a record for every .ie domain and website. WhoisIreland.com has active spiders that run weekly. It also provides statistics on Irish domain ownership and usage. In terms of internet footprint, this would be the biggest with 73K pages. Approximately 36K of these pages would be indexed monthly by all major search engines. It also indexes about 50K Irish owned .com/net/org/info websites for its searchengines.
Doras.ie:
Eircom's Doras directory is dead on the vine but it was never run by clueful people anyway. They forgot the important thing about any directory or search engine - all the user cares about is that he gets what he is looking for. I don't know what kind of traffic it would get but most people outside the industry that I have mentioned it to never even heard of it. It fails the searchingireland.com test.
Irishsites.com:
A similar zombie directory venture to Doras. It was intended to be the Online.ie (A dot.bomb AOL clone without the AOL subscriber revenue) directory but it was badly designed from a submission and search point of view. It is still advertised on Online.ie so it may get some follow through traffic from Online.ie users. As a player however it does not have much of a footprint with an estimated 395 pages. Many of the links are out of date and it frames the results. It fails the WEBireland result.
ProudIrish.com:
Finditireland.com:
isearch.ie:
Uses MnoGoSearch as search engine. Includes an ODP feed. Have seen the spider for this site but not any referrals. It was offering pay for inclusion and results improvement. I don;t think that I've seen it actively spidering since early July. Apparently now it is a non-profit site. Very low profile.
search.irl.com:
ODP based with user submission. Would have a lot more Northern Irish traffic than Southern traffic. Like many directories does not seem to keep its index current with pruning of dead links.
Irelandonthenet.com
Seems to be a Spanish site aimed at both Spain and Ireland. Not to be confused with Irelandonthenet.ie which is a far bigger Irish directory.
Shamrock/ireland-information.com:
Essentially an Irish links directory aimed at the US market with a lot of freebie user programs.
gasta.ie:
Primarily Overture search results. Low profile.
anything-irish.com:
Aimed at the business market, it is a pay for inclusion directory charging 25 Euros for inclusion.
The Morgue - Dead Irish Directories/SEs
iesearch.ie:
Once had a lot of promise in that it offered free text searching of .ie websites. Was taken offline a few years ago.
searchingireland.com
A college/schools award winning website that was really just a meta-search engine taking results from the main players of the time. Domain lapsed and was snatched by cybersquatters Ultimate Search.
searchirelandonly.ie:
Another venture with some promise and no revenue stream. Was mainly an exhibition site for the company's programming skill which was good considering the backend was apparently Access. Gone and domains expired.
