Are Pay to Play Directories Worth the Money?
Category : Pay to Play Directories
Published by Stevewii on 2006/4/3
Article written by Orange County SEO Expert Steve Wiideman. The days of free listings are over, with the exception of a few lingering heroes. Before you start putting $49 into listing on several thousand pay to play directories you should figure out if there are quantifiable impacts to your ROI. Read more below.

Pay to Play and ROI

If you're new to the Internet marketing arena and are thinking about investing money into one-way or reciprocal links within web directories, you may want to read this article first. Some of these directories may help you rank higher in the search engines others may actually get you banned. Knowing where to be listed in vital to the success of your link development campaign.

What is a Pay to Play Directory?

Pay to play directories (PPDs) are web sites that charge you a one-time or recurring fee for a listing in their directory which normally includes a link back to your website. Links are a valuable way to increase visibility through more incoming traffic and increased PageRank (more quality links = higher Page Rank = higher ranking in the search engine results).

Therefore, to increase the visibility to your website, you'll want to get as many quality links as possible pointing to your website. Pay to play directories are created by Internet Marketing Guru's who make money by offering links from their respective Pay to play directories.

Weighing the Value of PPD's

Okay, so which pay to play directories are worth the money? Here's how I measure the value of a pay to play directory (below) before I make an investment:

These are by far the most important factors in helping you decide which sites are worth the investment. When searching for pay to play directories, be extremely weary of websites that contain a ton of non-related links. These are referred to as link farms and will do absolutely nothing for you.

The Best Pay to Play Directories

Here a list of the best pay to play directories by PageRank as of 4/3/06 according to SEO Company:

  1. Google.com (Cost: Free - PR10)
  2. Yahoo Directory (Cost: $299 - PR9)
  3. Site Sift (Cost: $25 - PR8)
  4. MSN Small Business Central (Cost: $50/yr - PR7)
  5. Best of the Web (Cost: $30 - PR7)
  6. Business.com (Cost: $199/yr - PR7)
  7. Elib.org (Cost: $60 - PR7)
  8. Level 10's (Cost: $29 - PR7)
  9. This is Our Year (Cost: $20 - PR7)
  10. Web 10 (Cost: $49 - PR7)

Here's the best pay to play directories by Alexa Rank:

  1. Google.com (Cost: Free - Rank 0)
  2. Yahoo Directory (Cost: $299 - Rank 1)
  3. MSN Small Business Central (Cost: $50/yr - Rank 903)
  4. Business.com (Cost: $199/yr - Rank 1,197)
  5. ExactSeek.com (Cost: $12 - Rank 1,535)
  6. Joe Ant (Cost: $40 - Rank 6,070)
  7. What U Seek (Cost: $25 - Rank 7,448)
  8. Uncover The Net (Cost: $39 - Rank 9,148)
  9. Chiff.com (Cost: $60 - Rank 9,564)
  10. Site Quest (Cost: $60 - Rank 9,972)

For the record, I have no plans to keep this list updated - why reinvent the wheel? The best list is kept by this Canadian SEO Company (below), which can be sorted anyway you like. Get the current list anytime you like at the URL below:

http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html

Pay to Play Here to Stay

So now you know what to look for when you're ready to start paying to play. You know what list to start with and have a good idea of the cost you should be paying to get these listings.

For your convenience, I've also included a list of approximately 1,600 web directories that may help you rank higher in the search engines. The list is free when you purchase my eBook The Four Layers of the SEO Model: How to Rank Higher in the Search Engines. Remember, link development is critical to the success of your Internet marketing strategy - so get out there and get listed!