Well, this is a question post by someone in the Digitalpoint forums and we get all sorts of answers like good source of backlinks and all the good stuff. Sure, perhaps some of them are true but we all know what the truth is, right? The real reason why there are so many directories is because the world is full of people like me. We think that everyone else is stupid enough to pay us a lot of money for us to link to them. And thus, we start directories, all in the hopes that there are rich millionaires willing to pay a fortune and even do the work of submission for us. We install a directory script, buy a nice little template and they pay, then write their own description and we in turn just click on the “approve” button and our paypal accounts will be full. Easy work. I mean, really, nearly every other sites requires a lot of hardwork to set it up and continue to build, but not directories. People will do the work for you and you get paid in the process.

And that’s why there are so many directories. And the crazy thing is that people tend to follow what others are doing. The craze now is owning a directory, and a lot of sites are integrating directories into their main site too. I mean, why not? It’s isn’t so tough to maintain a directory.

The best question is why are there so few good and worthwhile directories? Ironically, the answer is the same. The world is full of punks like me, and we feel faint when we need to do some real work. Hopefully, we will see a change in the web directory industry. As this market gets more mature and the crap directories die out and people get smarter, we could see the real importance of web directories. I don’t see any real improvement in Search Engines, nor will it happen in the near future, so at least directories still have a hope to be relevant in the Internet. But only time will tell.