As you’re probably well aware, the economy isn’t in it’s best days right now. People and businesses are constantly struggling with finances, and with the battle of saving money as costs rise all around them.

eBusiness professionals are certainly not immune to this, so it seems like a good time to highlight the Financial category of our eBusiness Directory. Please keep in mind that our directory is not merely a place where people looking to submit there site go to dump links. Don’t get me wrong, they try. And some succeed, because we do accept submissions, but we’re very strict on what is actually accepted, because our goal is to keep this directory a useful resource for the end-user. In other words, it’s a destination to find some good resources as opposed to a place to promote your site.

The Financial category contains sites regarding all things financial related to eBusiness, from online stock trading and news to accounting services and financial software. You can also find banking sites, retirement planning resources and student financial aid information.

Check back often too, because we may add more sub-categories to the financial section, especially if the economic outlook of the world continues to be poor.

A few of our favorite sites in the financial sector include:

- MarketWatch.com

- Finance.yahoo.com

- Fool.com

- Forbes.com

- Money.CNN.com

Find these and a whole lot more in our Financial category of the WebPronews eBusiness Directory.

Last week, Chad over at the iEntry Directory Portal provided an “Election Edition” of his Directory Spotlight series, and included a list of directories with political categories.

Now the election has passed, but this still seems relevant, so I thought I would pass on the list here as well:

• 0ux.com – Politics
• 1414.info – Politics
• 1stchoicesearch.com – Politics
• 7cd.us – Politics
• AddingSites.info – Political
• AllBlogLink.com – Politics
• BlossomDirectory.com – Political
• CentralDir.com – Politics
• ContrastDirectory.com – Political
• CowDir.com – Political
• Crawlr.net – Politics
• DaddyDeepLinks.com – Political Blogs, Political News
• DirDir.org – Political
• DirectoryChimp.com – Political
• DirectoryCircle.com – Political
• DirectoryCow.com – Politics
• DirectoryCrystal.com – Political
• DirectoryFile.info – Politics
• DirectoryFix.com – Politics
• DirectoryLemon.com – Politics
• DirectoryMayhem.com – Political
• DirectoryMove.com – Political
• DirectoryPick.com – Politics
• DirectoryShip.com – Politics
• EngineDirectory.com – Politics
• EWebIndex.com – Political
• FatLinks.net – Political
• Free-Dir.info – Political
• FreeeDir.com – Politics
• GlobalDir.info – Political
• Groffo.com – Political News
• GroovyURL.com – Politics
• Helcomi.com – Politics
• Hewd.net – Politics
• i25HotLanes.com – Politics
• ImperialColors.org – Politics
• IndexMe.info – Political News
• iYemen.net – Politics
• KeSound.com – Politics
• LemonDirectory.com – Political
• Li9ks.com – Political
• LinkFlame.com – Political
• LinkHoles.com – Political
• LinkSider.com – Politics
• LinkWind.com – Political
• LinkZe.com – Politics
• ListingTop.com – Politics
• ListPosition.com – Political
• MonsterDir.com – Politics
• MyBigDir.info – Politics
• Nodp.info – Politics
• Nrcir.org – Politics
• OnDirectory.net – Political
• OrbDirectory.com – Political
• PTWC.net – Politics
• RayleGrand.com – Political
• Real-Directory.com – Political
• SoRedHot.com – Politics
• SubmitLink.us – Politics
• Un-earthed.co.uk – Politics
• Wd1r.com – Political
• WebDirectory.nu – Politics

Today is a huge day for us here in the United States. It’s Election Day of course, and that means it’s time for a new President. Which person that will be is yet to be determined at this point, but if you live in this country, and are registered to vote, you need to go out and do so if you haven’t already.

For my analysis on how the Internet has played a role in shaping the opinions and decisions of Americans, read this article.

A few other noteworthy election-related items are:

- Where The Candidates Stand On Web Issues

- YouTube Wants You To “Video Your Vote”

- Hitwise Examines UK Election Interest

- Facebook Leaves its Mark On Elections

- Watch the Election Unfold Through Google’s Elections Gallery

- Google Helps Kids Get Messages to Next President

- Big Celebrities: Use Google to Find Voting Info

Well, It’s Halloween. So why not check out some Halloween-related Directory listings?

First off, there’s the Halloween Directory itself:

Then there’s Halloween listings at:

Yahoo

FrightBytes

Classifieds1000 and of course…

Samhain.com

I’m sure there are a lot more. Anybody know of anymore actual Halloween-themed directories?

I stumbled across this link for “Search Engine Colossus” today, which is a directory of directories and search engines organized by country. It’s not the prettiest thing in the world to look at, but the organization of search engines and directories by country might prove useful for some.

The country list is pretty extensive, and there are quite a few listings within them. If you have a directory or search engine, it looks like a good place to submit to, and if you would like to find directories or search engines specific to your region, it is good for that as well.

I’m not sure if they offer paid listings or not, but it looks like they probably make most of their money from display ads, as they are littered throughout the site. The ads appear to be mostly for directories though, so perhaps those are their paid listings.

Shimon Sandler has an interesting post on “Factors of a Quality Web Directory”.

Within that posts, he cites some particular factors to look for:

1) Quantity of Inbound links.
2) Quality of Inbound links.
3) Age of Domain.
4) Topical relevancy to your site.
5) Human-edited is better than automated-based.(editorial control = quality).
6) How frequently the directory gets crawled…( check the Google cache).
7) The directory itself ranks in the Search Engines. (this can be a sign of authority, and can drive clickthrough traffic).

He seems pretty high on BOTW.

All of you Squidoo users might find this list helpful. It’s from Squidoo themselves, and points to a number of directories and social sites that are “Squidoo-friendly”, so you can get people to find your Squiddo lenses by submitting them.

- Lensroll.com

- Squidom

- The Isle of Squid

- The Squidirectory

- Squoogle Article Link Directory

- Squidoo Directory – SquidUtils

- LensmasterWorld.com

- Squiddit

- Suidtop

For those of you unfamiliar with Squidoo, it is basically a place where you can build pages by adding links from sponsors related to what you are interested in, and get paid money. It was founded by Seth Godin.

Brownbook.net is a directory that pays out earnings to users according to this release.
The site has launched a “user earnings program”.

Apparently users add business listings, make updates to listings or leave reviews and when a business pays to claim or promote its listing, the most recent user to have contributed earns a commission. I’m not sure what kind of money we’re talking about here, but it’s an interesting concept nonetheless.

“A traditional business directory regards its advertising sales force as a key asset, and they’re attention today is on working out how to leverage that asset in the face of competition on the web. What we’re proposing is that the traditional sales force is a dinosaur and the real power lies with the community of users,” says David Ingram, CEO of Brownbook.net. “Moreover we’re prepared to reward our community by paying them an ongoing share of the revenue they’re helping to generate when businesses claim or enhance their listings”

Anybody familiar with Brownbook and their program?

I know most of you that read this are always looking for new directories to submit to, so I’d like to point you to this site – Info Vilesilencer, which has some pretty good lists of them broken down into the following categories:

- Established Directories

- Pay for Review Directories

- General Free Directories

- Niche Directories

- Top 100 Directories

You ought to find a few new ones out of all of those. Enjoy.

I’d like to take this opportunity to direct any interested parties to the forum for the iEntry Directory Portal. This forum compliments the iEntry Directory Portal, a place where you can find all he directories (quite a few) that iEntry owns.

Chad writes:

You may ask any questions pertaining to any of the directories in our network under the Our DirectoriesJayde, Niche Directories, Regional Directories, Social Media Directories, and SubmitterBot (our newly acquired semi-mass submission service). This area is to be used if you are wanting any changes to your listings on any of these directories. category which contains subforums of

The forum also has subcategories related to general directory topics such as: Popular DirectoriesDirectory Submitters (discussion of topics regarding directory submission services), Directory Software (discussion of directory backend software like phpLD), and Directory Announcements (if you have a free listing directory, feel free to post about it in here). (discussion regarding other popular directories around the net),

There you have it. I don’t know what more I can add, but this is another way in which you can communicate with us and with each other regarding our directories, so have at it.