When you look at any particular Directory you want to list in, you could look at the Google PageRank, and you could also look at the Ranking (think Alexa and other Ranking Systems).
When you consider the Rank of that Directory (or any other IB source) as an indicator of Traffic, it's valuable to consider whether that Rank (visitor count) is being driven up owing to 'Supply' or 'Demand.'
That is, a Directory may have a lot of Traffic. But this doesn't automatically mean that they have a lot of visitors who go through their listings for things to buy (or read, or whatever your website can offer to them).
It can well be that the majority of visitors to that Directory form 'Supply' - folks coming simply to list their goods. Those folks are usually in, and out again, as soon as they get their Website link entered. So what you see is that these Directories have really high Visitor Traffic. But hardly any of those Visitors could be your Prospects (at least not many on the 'Demand' side). So you would realize that you're not listing in them because of potential Prospects you could get from folks who browse those Directories; you would only list in them because it can help your Website's Organic Rank (same for Google PageRank, which also doesn't specifically mean that there is a lot of 'Demand' traffic on any given website).
It's easy to see this 'Supply vs. Demand' traffic curve issue all the time with much more simple directory structures: MSN Groups, Yahoo Groups, and all other groups that allow free listings or posts on free directory boards. As a matter of fact, one of the most ingenious benefits of Social Networking Websites is that they do a good job of helping 'Supply' also become 'Demand' more readily... folks who come to list their goods also tend to take part in communicating with, and receiving interaction from, their audience and related audiences.
This is often not the same with Directories, however. So be sure to consider that, because it completely affects what you intend to accomplish with your listing in each Directory.
Things you can easily check before you commit to giving a particular website your URL:
** Check whether Google actually indexes the exact page you want to get listed onto... use Google's function (site:domain.com/listings/yourstate/yourcity/whatever.html or whatever.php) - be sure to check both the 'www.' and 'non-www.' version of the page to see if Google indexes that page you're considering putting your link on, at all. Don't forget to check both versions! Google may show no results for one, but definitely show the right result for the other.
Google may not index it... maybe because they didn't find it (yet).
Or *maybe many sub-pages of that directory are being blocked by the directory owner. Intentionally.*
You might be aware that a lot of Directories actually BLOCK Outbound Links to various Websites (using nofollow robot commands via .htaccess, etc). Those Directories block Outbound Links because a lot of links get posted on their sub-pages which don't actually relate to their Directory (again, we're using 'Directory' as a catch-all). If Google doesn't see cleanly relevant outbound links for whichever pages of that Directory, then Google will downplay the Directory Pages in results.
This lowers the Directory's Rank, so to counteract that, some will block the outbound links, preferring to target inbound links to raise relevance. The idea, for those owners, is that folks (humans on the 'Demand' side) actually come and browse their directories. And they don't really care if listing there helps YOU get more relevance in Google... partially because that requires a large programming job on their end to optimize each entry folks put up in the various sections of their directories.
Another issue is that Google simply won't index many of those Directory Sub-Pages, because those Sub-Pages strike Google's algorithms as mainly duplicate pages. Titles, Meta Descriptions, Page Structure... depending on the layout, *Google may simply decline to index many of the directory sub-pages you intended to put your link on.*
While that doesn't hurt you as far as whether you're listed on those non-indexed directory pages, it could mean that you're wasting your time. If there isn't much 'Supply' on those Directories, and the pages are BLOCKED from appearing in Google results (by either Google or the Directory owner), then why list there? Perhaps for the benefit of another search engine that does index that very directory sub-page... but you would figure that out before bothering to list in that directory at all.
Hopefully you found this information useful!
Ok... I realize this is a long article; I hope you found it interesting... Please feel free to comment - and stay in touch.
