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The Difference between Search Engines and Directories

Both Search Engines and Directories index and list websites; however, the manner in which these lists are built differs between the two. Making things more complex, each Search Engine and Directory uses a different system for evaluating and ranking websites.

1. Directories

Directories utilize human editors to compile categorized listings of websites (most directories will not include individual webpages) that have been submitted and reviewed. Editors are less likely to review and list websites of poor quality. Many Directories charge a fee for inclusion within their listings. A Directory search will only return websites found within its compiled list. Samples of Directories include: Yahoo Search, Open Directory, Looksmart, About.com.

2. Search Engines

Search Engines create listings that include both websites and webpages. These listings are built by spider programs (also called robots) that crawl through websites to build an index of listings. Since Search Engines index sites utilizing programs to read webpages, it is very important to have a robot-friendly website, meaning the pages on the website are optimized in such a way as to allow the robots to easily read and categorize the content of the page. Samples of Search Engines include: Google, Bing, Ask.com, HotBot, Lycos.

3. Hybrid Search Sites

Some search sites now use a hybrid of Search Engine and Directory. The foremost example for a hybrid site is Yahoo!. Yahoo started including Search Engine results in 2004 in order to compete with the growing giant Google. For its part, Google has also added its own directory search option which is powered by Open Directory (see Google Directory.)

Submitting Your Website

There are websites that offer automation tools for submitting your website to multiple Search Engines and Directories. It is usually best to submit to a Directory manually. Most of the major Directories discourage or even ban automated submissions. Search Engines on the other hand are constantly crawling to find new websites, so submission is not necessary. However, submitting to Search Engines could speed up the inclusion of a new website, since Search Engine spiders may not get around to indexing your website right away.

ACTION STEP 3

Whether your website is old or new, make sure the website has been optimized to be robot-friendly (see Step 4: Website Optimization/Making Your Website Robot-Friendly). When your website is ready, then find a good tool for making automatic submissions to Search Engines and Directories such as SelfPromotion.com.  Manually submit to Open Directory.  There is no fee, and it is currently the largest free Directory. Also, consider submitting to paid Directories, especially Yahoo Search,  (about $300 for review plus a $300 annual fee, at the time this article was written). Next do a bit of research to find industry related directories to submit your website to. Such as WeCareToo,  which specializes in listings of non-profit websites.