Greg Hartnett, from Best of the Web Directory (BOTW), was interviewed and gives some insightful advice on directories. BOTW was started in 1994 at the University of Buffalo.

Greg has been in the search industry since the beginning. As a matter of fact, BOTW is the first reference in Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s college thesis paper that started Google…

Q: Are there any web directories, or “Spam Directories” we should stay away from?

A: Absolutely. As is the case in any industry, there are some businesses you should work with, and some you should steer clear of. A site owner should do some homework, and make sure that they have confidence in the quality of the directory. Some things that may signal a sub-par directory:

- Run of site links
- Listings of poor quality
- Javascript links to sites
- Overuse of keywords in titles and descriptions
- Directories less than a year old
- Directories with overpopulated top level categories, and empty sub categories
- Directories powered by an off-the-shelf script

Read Full Interview by Shimon Sandler

Also, check out BOTW’s new Blog Directory.

[Found via Marketing Pilgrim]