What are Web Directories?

What Are Web Directories?
A web directory (or web guide) is a web site that categorizes web pages so you can browse links to web pages by topic. For example, the Yahoo web directory (www.yahoo.com) includes categories for Arts and Humanities, Business and Economy, Computers and Internet, Education, and a dozen others. Each of these major categories contains many subcategories: for example, if you click the Recreation and Sports category, you see Sports, Games, Travel, Fitness, Outdoors, and many other subcategories. Keep clicking categories to see their subcategories until you find the specific types of web pages you are looking for.

The advantage of a web directory over a search engine is that human beings have categorized the web pages, so all the links in a category usually belong there. Web directories are great for browsing when you don't know the exact name of what you looking for. For example, if you want to know which gourmet shops sell merchandise online, you can browse to the page listing online gourmet stores without knowing the exact name of a store and without stumbling over other food-related sites.
On the other hand, search engines are quicker than web directories if need looking for information about a specific, unusual term. For example, if you need pages about DatorLab using a search engine to search for the terms gives you pages on your specific topic. Stone web directories also include search engines. Like Yahoo!