By: Chris Channing

Back when the Internet was first starting out, it was a mess to find out good websites. There were no search engines, Internet directories, and websites relied on either guessable domain names or hyperlinks from other websites to get heard. But then the Internet directory was created- and it all exploded from there!

A Look At Internet Directories: Then And Now

The first Internet directories were simple- perhaps listing a few links to valuable websites that every Internet user should bookmark. As these expanded, so did the role that the Internet directory played in getting information to Internet users.

As luck would have it, the Internet directory started to die out when the search engine was created. Search engines could find many types of websites and automatically add them to their list- making it incredibly easy to find new websites.

Search engines then had begun to become more popular than Internet directories- and why shouldn’t they? They were more useful at finding new content, and also excelled in keeping their listings automatically updated.

Out of all the reasons, search engines gained much of their renown from simply auto-updating their content. This is in comparison to directories, who can’t keep up with websites or their continually updating webpages. Search engines, however, do this on a continual basis.

Internet Directories in Today’s Society

As you most likely know, search engines are used more on average than Internet directories. But web directories still have a place on the Internet, as they allow for “grouping” of websites into categories. This allows for Internet users to find new resources based on tagging- something search engines don’t normally do.

But for webmasters, directories still play a very large role in the Internet’s composition. Having many links to a certain website can help increase the ranking for the website in search engine results. This, in turn, allows webmasters to obtain more visitors and potentially make more profit as a result.

Web Directories Of The Future

Thankfully, the web directory isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. They still play a large role in the Internet, which can be seen by their price tags. Some web directories demand webmasters pay vast sums of money in order to get a submission- sometimes over hundreds of dollars!

In the future it is likely that Internet directories will stay- after all, they have a large history with the very creation of the Internet! With their weight provided in search engine rankings, it could be decades before even the thought of switching to a better form of indexing occurs!