Directories
How and Where to Submit for Top Rankings
Directories are built to be browsed as well as searched. Many big directories (e.g. Yahoo and the Open Directory) list sites in the directory in alphabetical order. Therefore to gain a high rank in the directory browsing view you simply need a website name / company name that appears first in an alphabetical order. They do check for cheating however so don't try to fool them or you may not get listed at all. For example, if you submit your site as AAA Widgets, that should be either the URL (AAAWidgets.com) or the name of your site as a visitor would observe.
This doesn't apply to search results from directories, only for actually browsing through the categories of the directory. Also, any "most popular sites" or "editor's picks" (if any) will appear at the very top, before the alphabetical listing. There are other exceptions to the alphabetical order. The ODP (dmoz.org) listings ignore the word 'The' and any numerals that occur in the title of a website. A site titled "The 1st Legion" would strangely appear in order as if beginning with 'st' (from 1st) as both the word 'The' and the numeral '1' would not count in the ordering.
Search Results from Directories
In general there are just three factors that determine your rank in search results from a human indexed directory: The Title, the description and the category you selected for your listing. The search will look for keywords matching the search words in those three areas.
This means that the category you select for your submission is vital to position in competitive areas. Yahoo searches the entire path of the category, meaning that sub-categories have more keywords than main categories. Look for a category path that includes your primary keywords, as in Yahoo at least, the category keywords seem to rate higher than keywords in both titles and descriptions.
Choosing a Directory Category
In some cases, there will be a single category where a site obviously belongs; if this is the case, submit to that category. However, in other cases there may be multiple possibilities. Beyond the keyword issues mentioned above, here are a few other considerations:
Position in Hiearchy. Generally, higher level categories are more important pages. They may get more visitors, and usually have higher Google PageRank. Therefore, all things being equal, a category higher in the directory hiearchy will be better.
Number of Listings. Fewer is better. Massive lists of links dilute PageRank transfer and may be hard for visitors to browse. Avoid pages with hundreds of links when possible.
Google PageRank. Although Google PageRank may not be as potent as it once was, check the PR of the various pages - higher is better.
Naturally, these factors may often conflict - you'll have to make a judgment call, or see if you can be listed in multiple categories.
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