There are plenty of arguments between SEO professionals over the value of directories, and the role they play in the great purpose of the Internet. Many claim that there need only be one directory, where one can look for and find a product or service that they require. But with the proliferation of hundreds of thousands of directories, each with its own ideas of relevancy and value, an individual looking for a particular website has no hope of finding exactly what they are looking for because they wouldn't even know what directory to look in.

But there are deeper purposes to website link directories, and whether the Internet needs them all or not, they have still found their own niche, and there are businesses that are thriving based solely on these Internet directories.

Many webmaster entrepreneurs think that more is better, and that if they can make ten dollars on one directory, through paid submissions, Google Adsense, or other revenue streams, then they should be able to make thousands of dollars with multiple directories. So, web directories are cloned, copied, and reproduced in such great numbers that the Internet bloats with duplicate content, multiple directories with identical listings and links to outgoing websites.

But wait, one of the key factors to linkbuilding is to gain incoming links, and website directories offer an inexpensive means of providing hundreds (if not thousands) of backlinks. There are different processes on submission, but if you have the time, the money, the patience, or the ingenuity, you could possible build up enough backlinks through web directories that your site could become much more profitable through higher search engine results and traffic.

So maybe there is value to having your website listed in scores of mirrored link directories where your website is being promoted (along with thousands of others), because the search engines count these links as votes, although their individual value may be hard to measure, and the weight of those votes may be insignificant on their own. But collectively, web directories could influence how the search engines treat your site, and indirectly make it easier for Joe Visitor to find the products and services that you are trying to advertise.

Now the ethics of the Internet might still argue that those same visitors would have an easier time finding you if there was just one directory, but because it has now become such a dynamic industry, you might be offer off playing along, and getting your links submitted for whatever value they may return.