If you are one of those people that had been working hard to develop up a viable web directory, with the hope of turning it into a money spinner, then the recent page rank update conducted by Google, may have thrown a spanner in the works. A lot of directories suffered at the hands of the page rank update, in many cases losing page rank altogether. This is a problem for both the directory owner, whose link prices rely heavily on the directories page rank, as well as the buyers, who buy a link in order to have give their own sites a shot of page rank juice. No page rank, no juice.

For those still looking to pick up directory links, a quality directory, is an increasingly valuable commodity. The Dirmania Web Directory is one such directory. Dirmania markets itself as a "free web directory", however I find that claim a little misleading. Why? Well, placing a link on Dirmania is not free, it'll cost you $4 for a standard listing, and $7 for an express listing (see screen capture below).

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I'm not sure how you could call something free, when you are actually charging money for it?

That aside, the days of the paid web directory may behind us, in which case finding resources such as Dirmania become an increasingly rare occurrence. What do you think? Would you pay for inclusion in a web directory to boost your search result standing? Why/Why not?