To pay or not to pay

In my opinion the biggest benefit for paying for directories is the fact that they tend to get reviewed way quicker than any free directories do. I understand that directories by themselves will not effect serps but with a combo of link building strategies i believe they have a value.

my question to you is whether you believe in paying for directories to get faster inclusion or do you wait the 5+ months that a lot of them take in order to get your link included.

I don't believe in that.
Last week I found a directory in which you can pay to remove a competitor

OP... There is no doubt that paying for a directory submission will bring you faster approval than going the free route. The real issue is the value that you are getting... other than two or three big name directories there is no directory out there that can be enough of a value in SEO to warrant paying.

A free directory submission on the other hand costs you nothing other than time therefore the risk is minimal. You submit and forget about it and hopefully after a few months you will receive some small value.

I don't even bother submitting to directories anymore. I save my money for other stuff such as hiring article writers, or promoting my quality blog posts on stumbleupon or digg.

Blogs + Social Promotion = Win

I think many of us do not understand the importance of directory submission. If i submit to directories with targeted keyword phrase in the title which acts as a anchor text and 200 characters description acts as keywords for my anchor keyword.

to publish on blog and article directories, i need to write a 400 words article and wait for the same approval time.

according to me, writing 200 characters description and submitting to thousands of directories would be more easy and convenient which in turn i can expect good quality backlinks except the directory owner does not place me on nofollow attribute to my link.

Nick...

this line "...with a combo of link building strategies i believe they have a value..." I must ask on what do you base that opinion? do you have any empirical evidence of same?

???

Jim