A directory that earns its links.
Open Web Directory is a hand-reviewed index of real businesses. Nothing is published until a curator has read it, every approved profile keeps a page of its own, and the link from that page to the member's website is a plain dofollow link — not sponsored, not redirected, not rented by the month.
- 1,071
- 71
- By hand
- Dofollow
The web has enough link farms. It needs an index.
Directories were the first way the web was organised, and somewhere along the way most of them turned into link farms — pages you paid to appear on, filled with entries nobody had ever read, linking onwards to sites that had quietly gone away.
Open Web Directory is a deliberate step back. A submission is read before it is published. Placeholder pages, dead websites and duplicates are turned away. What is left is an index that is worth being in — and worth browsing when you are looking for a business that actually exists.
It stays honest in both directions. The same review applies whether a listing is free or paid, every profile links out the same way, and the directory holds the link itself to the standard a search engine would expect of it.
- Read by a personEvery submission passes a curator before it goes live. No bulk imports, no auto-publishing, no entry nobody has looked at.
- One kind of linkEvery approved profile earns the same dofollow link. Paying moves an entry up the queue or into the Spotlight — never into a different class of link.
- Permanent pagesAn approved profile keeps its own URL and its own page. Nothing rotates out of the index at the end of a month.
- An answer, either wayA rejection carries a reason and the entry can be corrected and sent back. A person reads what you send us.
Four things every listing has to pass
The review is the product. These are the tests an entry is measured against before it is indexed — and the reason a curator sometimes says no.
A real, operating business
Identifiable, contactable, and trading. Holding pages, affiliate shells and unfinished sites are turned away.
A website that loads
The link on the profile has to open, and it has to be the business’s own site rather than a redirect or a marketplace page.
Details a visitor can trust
Name, sector, place and description have to describe the business as it actually is — not the keywords it would like to rank for.
One entry, honestly submitted
One listing per business. Duplicates are merged, and entries are never harvested in bulk from other people’s search results.
Bring your business into the index.
Submitting takes a few minutes and costs nothing. A curator reads every entry, so what you get back is a page worth linking to.