I recently purchased a software called Directory Submitter which aids in submitting your websites to directories. The major problem I had with directory submissions was that it really took a long time to submit your websites even if you had a list of directories at hand.

The usual process was to visit a directory, navigate to the category that you wanted to place your link in and click on a link on that page to submit your website. Some websites required you to create an account first, some to purchase the listing and others to put a reciprocal link on your website.

You had to enter lots of details about your website like site title, description, category and keywords but also personal information like email, username and password in a form and it really was a boring process that took really long for each directory even if you did make use of copy and paste.

Directory Submitter was advertised by Vic who is running his website Blogger Unleashed and I thought to give it a try. I thought it would be a fully automated software which it is not, more about this later.

The software costs about $70 and gives you the option to buy Keyword Elite and SEO Elite for 50% off after the purchase.

Once you start Directory Submitter you are prompted to create a first project. A project basically contains the information about one website that you want to submit to the directories.

You add all those information that directories request once. This includes personal information as well as Titles, Keywords and Descriptions. Yes that is right, you can add more than one in each field to add variety and avoid duplicate content.

Directory Submitter offers a list of about 2200 directories after updating the list of available directories online which consist of paid and free directories. There is unfortunately no information if a free directory requires a reciprocal link or not and no way to create those from within the software.

Several directories are not working anymore and it takes some time to kick those from the list.

The process to submit a site to a directory is still manual. The program comes with a browser that is used to navigate the websites and find the submit url link. The data is entered automatically most of the time except for the category and captcha. Directories that require a login before submission are taking the longest to submit to because you need to enter additional information and normally confirm your email.

Directory Submitter saves you the time to fill out those information manually but that’s pretty much it. I really had hopes that this software would automate the process a bit more. Don’t get me wrong you save time and the manual approach has some advantages like being able to edit the information that are automatically entered in the form for instance or picking the right category.

While you save time you will still be busy submitting your website(s) to those directories. My estimation is that it takes at least 5-6 hours to go through the list once even if you only select the free directories.

I did remove all the directories that would lead to a 404 from the list to speed up things the next time I would run a new project in the software.

It is possible to add new directories to the software which is definitely nice but also lots of work. I guess Directory Submitter is a nice software if you submit to directories regularly. It does save time and that’s the main advantage of the software. If you only submit to directories once or twice a year you might consider this carefully since a directory submission at some webmaster forums can be bought for roughly $10.