Proposing link exchanges with other sites that have similar content to your own is a good idea, but the process can be terribly time consuming. So what else can you do? Most webmasters tend to underestimate the usefulness of online directories in propagating links to their website. No, I am not talking about FFA pages or the thousands of small directories only the website owners and perhaps two other people know about. I am talking about the big directories, such as The Open Directory Project (ODP or DMOZ), Yahoo, Zeal, and even Buzzle. But perhaps most importantly, these directories act as a propagation source for other sites that are looking to place relevant links on their site. For example, someone who has website about tropical plants may want to place a variety of links to other sites with the same topic. Chances are good they will go to one (or more) of these directories, pick out some links, and place them on their links page. Now, if your website has something to do with tropical plants, and your site was listed in the directory and category they took links from, you might have received a free link from this other website without ever having asked for it. You would probably be surprised just how many new sites fill their fledgling link pages with websites listed on Yahoo, ODP, and other directories.

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