11.4. Directories and Search Engines

Now that you're well on your way to perfecting and popularizing your site, it's time to start looking at the second level of Internet promotion—search engines. Getting your Web site into the most important search engine catalogs is a key step in publicizing it. Working your way up the rankings so Web searchers are likely to find you takes more work, and monopolizes the late-night hours of many a Webmaster.

11.4.1. Directories

Directories are searchable site listings with a difference: humans, not programs, create them. That means a small army of workers painstakingly puts together a collection of sites, neatly sorted into categories. The advantage of directories is that they're well-organized. A couple of clicks can get you a complete list of California regional newspapers, for example. The unquestioned disadvantage is that directories are dramatically smaller than full-text search catalogs. That means directories aren't very useful for those in search of a piece of elusive information that doesn't easily fall into a category, like a list of the English language's most commonly misspelled words. Over the years, as the Web's ballooned in size, directories have become increasingly specialized, and full-text search tools like Google and Yahoo have become the most common way that people hunt for information.