Before you submit any site into paid web directory, you must answer yourself on following questions:

Free directories or paid directories?

In order to understand the answer, you must understand the reasons why people start directories. Long time ago it was a terrible process to build a directory script, since there were less programmers and software capacities than now. Nowadays it’s easier to do, however not every programmer is capable to build a web directory script from scratch. The problem resists; People don’t know programming, they want money only. Let’s divide free directories’ owners into 2 main groups – People who created them from scratch, and people who bought scripts from unreliable sources. I guarantee you that the first group will run more free web directories than the second group. Why? Because of that who does thing himself, does it for fun or as hobby. If you buy a questionable script, you want your money back. Simple. PhpLD script is the most used directory script these days. Even though it looks promising, you must customize it in the end. And because of that script is built upon very questionable requirements, you’d wonder how many problems does it bring with.

Is paid listing worth any money?

„Of course, it is.“; That’s what their administrators and owners say. But whom does it bring advantages and benefits? Good manager calculates positives and negatives before he/she buys a link, product or whatever. Count with me…

How many visitors,
How many potential customers,
How many advertisers

does that paid link attract to your web site?

Standard answers: 0, 0, 0.

People on the web use Google, Yahoo and MSN, not paid directories. Simple.

How long does it take until my site becomes approved after my payment is realized?

1-2 business days. Usually, that’s what web directories’ owners claim officially. Really true? I don’t think so. Many directories don’t accept submissions after some time. It’s natural result of lack of interest. People don’t buy links, webmasters get disappointed and later they give up submissions. So your link submission can be reviewed in 1 day as well as 30 days of never.

Is my listing guaranteed?

No. Bear in mind that no listing is guaranteed and so aren’t guaranteed refunds. In some cases, owners return payment, but this is an exception much more than rule. Additionally, your submission can be moved to a deep page which wasn’t visited by major search engines for hundreds of days! What’s more, sometimes your site will be moved to a deep category with zero PageRank! Picture, you submit a site into PR6 directory, but you’ll get PR0 link. Is it really worth any money?

What if paid directory staff removes my link after a week or so?

You can’t do anything about it. If you instituted a suit against those unreliable directory owners, you’ll never win. First, any court won’t be dealing with $50 or $100 stealth. Second, what if those owners come from India, Pakistan or whatever? I must say some web directories work this way. In order to attract people submitting their sites they keep prices at low values, but they also remove links after some time. It’s because they want to keep the number of outgoing links within some borders.

What are general benefits of paid listing?

There is only one benefit; You waste your money. This benefit helps the paid directory owner only, not you.