With the amazing success they have achieved over the years, Best of the Web intends to take their service one step further with the recent addition of an exciting new feature – Best of the Web Local (BOTW Local).

BOTW Local is aimed at providing the local brick-and-mortar business owners an opportunity to bring their businesses online and gain more visibility. Just about anyone can submit their business to BOTW Local. The best part is that you do not need a website to do that. People who are exceptionally passionate about their businesses can create a high quality website, submit it to BOTW Local and dominate the local marketplace with ease.

If a business wants to pull a large number of customers, it is important to place the business in front of customers who are ready to act, which means the business should show up when people look for businesses in an area. Using BOTW local, customers can locate local businesses. It also helps business owners reach more people in their area. Each business is given its own page where they will be able to list all the information about their business, including the phone numbers, location and other details.

As part of the efforts to encourage brick-and-mortar business owners, Best of the Web offers free basic listings. Only those businesses that wish to maximize their presence will have to pay a fee. Paid listings will get more leeway than free listings, and will be able to provide a detailed business description, pictures of their business and a link to their website, if they have one. One thing that remains constant for both free and paid listings is that businesses need to have a physical address to be able to list their business or site in BOTW Local.

Any offline business on any part of the United States map can be listed in BOTW Local. It can be any type of business; travel and accommodation, restaurant, bank, private doctor, hospital, auto dealer, museum, theater and others.

For convenience, all businesses will be listed under specific related categories and they will be searched either state, city, zip code or adress wise. Google maps are also available, which provide direction through street maps, satellite imagery as well as imagery with street names, making it easier to find a business.

According to Best of the Web, businesses listed in BOTW Local enjoy the benefit of increased relevance, in terms of a highly targeted traffic as opposed to being listed in the general category that brings less targeted visitors.

We cannot deny the power of local search, what with more users coming online instead of using the Yellow Pages, including people new to a place, going online to look for local businesses. Irrespective of whether a business has online presence or not, it helps to be listed in a web directory that has a high PageRank, keeps spam away and has listings of high quality. Best of the Web is a quality-conscious directory that scores well on all accounts and BOTW Local has to be one of the most viable platforms to get a local business listed in.

At the very bottom of the homepage is yet another list of links only marginally related to the site purpose. These lists are site wide as well, appearing as a separate list even on the “Other Places to Search” page which does contain quality environmentally related links. If these questionable links were removed leaving only the bona fide categories and related searches, the Environment Wed Directory would be off to a much more authentic start as a quality directory. As it is, one can only hope that the links are providing the financial backing for the site allowing the owners to pull together a terrific collection of environmentally related links.

The Environment Web Directory fills an obvious niche as it seeks to collect authoritative links on various aspects of the environment. According to the information page (also flooded with unrelated links) the staff of the Environment Web Directory numbers twenty-three and comes together in the basement of a music store to search out and list the best environmental sites available.

In the actual directory portion of the homepage, the environmental links are broken down into the same kinds of categories present on most directories. Only with the focus on the environment topics for the categories have a decidedly greener feel. In fact the entire website is green – in every sense of the word. Categories range from weather to energy to pollution with an impressive collection of sub categories under each.

The subcategories are also listed multiple times under various heading, but linked neatly back to the same page ensuring visitors can find what they need no matter where they search. For example, a link to the Waste Management links is found under Pollution and Recycling as it is strongly related and searchable in each category.

The Environment Web Directory began in 1994, and appears to be well updated with current links. All links tested were live although some loaded very slowly. The site is well balanced with all aspects of the environment. It doesn’t show particular favoritism to veganism over animal husbandry, not does it list only websites from a handful of countries. Links are to websites from all over the world and none of the links tested could be called propaganda of any kind.

The developers behind the Environment Web Directory could stand a site redesign sans unrelated links, but the content provided on the site more than makes up for the awkward introduction. The link quality is excellent and it is obvious that the site editors work to ensure only authoritative websites make the list.

While this concept sounds a lot like the overwhelmingly popular Wikipedia, there are critical differences.
Open-site.org is set up on a CMS platform, not a wiki. The open-site framework is much closer to that of a true online encyclopedia, not a wiki. Open-site.org does make it clear that they are neither a dictionary nor an encyclopedia, however. The site considers itself a “informational, volunteer-based web-site”.

Of course, it may not be written by scientists and specialists in the field, but editors must be approved before they can add or change content and even then, that content must be approved by a senior editor. The public can’t modify information at all without applying and being approved as editors. The site is also organized by category, much like a print encyclopedia might be making it simple to browse from one category to another and find related information.

Open-site.org is a sister site of the Open Directory Project and is built on the same framework. That is where the similarities end however. The Open Directly Project, or DMOZ, handles only links. Open Site deals in content. The goal of Open Site is to build “the most comprehensive, informational, volunteer-powered web-site on the Internet.” The same can not be said for DMOZ as it has little or nothing to do with content at all.

Open Site has a long list of categories spanning from Arts to Sports and even has recently begun a Children’s version of the online encyclopedia that is still in production and not readily available through the Open Site website.

The design on Open Site is simple to use and has an adequate amount of information on each topic covered, there aren’t many topics actually discussed on the site in comparison to other Wikis. The popular cultural aspects of the site especially are lacking. For example, while Clint Eastwood is listed under Actors there is no mention of the teenage heartthrob Zac Efron despite his huge popularity online and off in recent years.

The content is written simply in a consistent format which makes it simple to read, although it is often not presented with the depth one would hope to find in an online source. There are also many blank articles throughout the site, a sure sign it is still very much underdevelopment.

It is clear that Open Site is working hard to provide only quality content to visitors, and the site actually goes one step beyond that. All content offered on Open Site is free for use by other websites provided credit is given properly and all terms are met. Overall, Open-Site.org is a website with a great deal of positive material to offer, but with plenty of room for more.

Founded in 1994, Best of the Web was designed to showcase websites that were nominated and then voted as the best of a category. Brandon Plewe, the founder, included many categories, and the site was very successful. Party planning and housing issues were listed along side financial websites and online magazines. However after 1998, the site lay dormant for years until it was sold and refurbished in 2002.

Currently, BOTW is a general paid directory that allows only quality websites and removes spam. It is still as progressive today as it was in 1994, but there are many more directories available to compete with. Of course, there is not actually much competition at all from these other directories as Best of the Web is known to provide quality listings without the garbage that search engines often offer up.

Best of the Web has five office locations with employees at each scouring the internet finding quality locations to list in the directory. Webmasters can submit a site to be included, but they must wait for reviews and admittance before becoming listing.

As Best of the Web is known for its quality, the company can be very selective when it comes to individual website quality. If your site’s not deemed good enough, it won’t get in. It’s as simple as that. But if your site is allowed into the directory, you will be listed among many of the best and most authoritative websites on the internet today.

In 2005, Best of the Web introduced the first blog directory. The blog directory is just as powerful and authoritative as the traditional directory, and takes into consideration the constantly changing elements of a blog.

To be reviewed and possibly included, Best of the Web requires payment from commercial websites. After a site is thoroughly reviewed, it will be listed among the others of that particular category. As BOTW is such as prestigious directory, the fees to be reviewed are rather steep. A one-time fee of $239.95 will get your site included indefinitely, or $79.95 each year will let you take control of your own site, even in the directory.

Overall, Best of the Web is innovative and forward thinking. It has gone from a website that simply listed the best of the web to a website that clearly belongs at the top of the list. BOTW is indispensable for many searchers who are fed up with Google results and want to know that the site they are viewing is quality. And with Best of the Web, that is exactly what they get.

Starting Point was founded in 1995 by early online pioneer Frank Addante, where it was designed to be both a search engine and directory. The two still overlap today. Initially, the Starting Point Directory had a unique feature which had to do with voting links on the pages listed in the site. Websites with high numbers of votes from visitors would receive a hot site award and actually be profiled in the directory.

During the last few years of the twentieth century, the popularity of the site grew until it was one of the largest directories around. Yesmail.com purchased the website in 1997, but did little with it until the site was resold to Techlabs, Inc in 1999. Unfortunately, Techlabs did not have a use for or desire to refurbish the website, so Starting Point languished for a few years. Finally, Starting Point was sold to a new owner who brought back the original polish of the site in 2006.

Today Starting Point is a human –edited directory with paid editors that review every submitted website to ensure it meets the high standard of quality. The listings inside Starting Point are a combination of Google results and paid submissions. The listings are also sprinkled with Adsense offers, but most webmasters and searchers are not phased by these as the ads have become such a natural part of websites today.

To have your site reviewed by Starting Point, you must submit an annual payment of $99. There is no one-time payment option available. The $99 payment will buy a deep review and a listing if your site meets the quality requirements of Starting Point. The $99 fee is recurrent annually, but is well worth every penny for the quality of the traffic and resulting clout in search engines.

Directories have always been a source of traffic and links to websites, but only quality and edited directories such as Starting Point can bring quality traffic. Free directories often are full of spam and junk sites, but by using the services of Starting Point and other popular paid directories, you can ensure that your website is among substantial websites.

As Starting Point has only been redeveloped in the past year, the listings are not yet overwhelming. A webmaster would do well to submit his site now before another few months or years go by and competition for prime directory placement heats up.