Having a web directory is becoming increasingly popular these days. It can bring many benefits such as delivering an increased amount of new visitors and providing a steady income. Google, Yahoo and MSN contribute heavily to its algorithm. Many webmasters are attracted by the fact that they can get traffic from such directories and would pay a small fee or put a reciprocal link to get their website listed in these directories. These benefits will ultimately improve the promotion of the website.

Webmasters are also very interested with inbound links for improving their PR (Page Rank) with Google. A good PR gives better position in Google's search engine results. In theory the more quality inbound links you get, the higher your PR will go. Directories give a good solution for all webmasters. They also prove to be a good addition to existing web sites.

We can differentiate 3 types of directories: free, reciprocal-link and Pay for Inclusion directories:

1) Free directories are by far the most interesting for webmasters as they can give a high PR without having to spend a penny. However you'll have to spend some time submitting your website to all of these. They don't usually give you much traffic either as there is an over abundance of them on the internet.

2) Reciprocal-Link directories require placing a small link into the webmaster's website. This can be dangerous if the directory has been black listed by Google.

3) Finally, Paid For Inclusion directories can deliver very good results as they usually give better PR and have more traffic than free directories.

However, not all directories will give you good results. Many use a redirect function for linking to your website. Your website won't benefit from such links. You'll need a static outgoing link from directories to gain weight with search engines. Many of the directories do offer you deep-linking options which mean that they will allow you to submit more than one URL from your domain in order to get your internal pages more traffic and ranking.

So keep in mind that directories are wholly beneficial for your websites as long as you take the time to carefully plan the submission beforehand by checking if they are not using tricks (redirects, reciprocal). Also, don't forget to submit your website to the most relevant category on the directory and to read its description!