Which ones are worth time and money.
I know that most of them are paid listings so would love to hear if anyone had any success with any of them.

I've looked at webhostdir.com but I am contemplating signing up for premium spots. Anyone tried them or have other ones to suggest?

Other hosting companies are your competitors and they are not going to give away successful advertising/marketing techniques without a fight.

Sorry as I really did not get your point. Do you mean is setting up a new hosting directory profitable to make money through referrals and affiliate hosting packages? They sure are but by checking out the niche you would find it to be extremely competitive, already targeted by tens or hundreds of strong domains.

Agree with HostMantis, if everyone gave away their marketing secrets, they would be giving away their success.

I think it was actually a very fair question. There are 1000s of web hosting operators out there and having one more listing in a certain catalog/directory would not make a difference to anyone, especially that it would seem there are a lot of directories out there.

A lot of people would advertise in directories and might have good/bad experience. I think just like hosting providers, it is necessary to share and review the experience you have.

If it were a different industry, I would agree with you Artashes, but the web hosting industry is a highly competitive industry due to the large amount of companies and also the fact that the major players in the industry have caused advertising costs to skyrocket due to the inflated click cost associated with web hosting related keywords.

So, as a smaller provider, if you happen to find a cost effective means of advertising your web hosting services, you're not going to be too eager to share.

My mindset is somewhat different - I believe there are plenty of clients for everyone, regardless of how competitive the industry is. I subscribe to the business principles in The Go-Giver and Go-Givers Sell More, by Bob Burg and John David Mann. I've found that if you give freely, you receive many times over.

Saying that, we've not really used directories to advertise - until just recently, and are now beginning the same process of evaluation. What I'm looking for are directories with high SERPS for the keywords that relate to our services.

I am also in the same boat, testing the waters and seeing what i can find.

here are some:



http://www.atyourhost.com/Dedicated_Servers/?p=2
http://www.dedicatedserverdir.com/se...aspx?spid=1659
http://www.hostaz.com/company/webairhosting.htm
http://www.hostdepartment.com/web_hosting_plans/6/
http://www.onlinewebdirectory.com/we..._provider.html
http://www.pegasusdirectory.com/Comp...ng_Comapanies/
http://www.hopunloppu.fi/directory/I...t/Web_Hosting/
http://www.dir-dating.com/webmaster_resources/hosting/
http://www.prolinkdirectory.com/more/webmasters
http://forums.webhostdir.com/member.php?u=13483
http://www.hopunloppu.fi/directory/I...t/Web_Hosting/
http://www.webhostingneeds.com/Unmet...icated_Servers
http://extremebull****.com/resources/Website_Hosting/
http://www.colocationslist.com/coloc...a%20red%20inc/
http://www.onlinehostingdirectory.com/
http://directory.findmyhost.com/windows-hosting.asp
http://www.onlinehostingdirectory.co...sub=6&cat_id=6
http://www.hostingfolio.com/category/shared-hosting/
http://www.parallels.com/en/partnernet/hosting/type,59

Agree with HostMantis, if everyone gave away their marketing secrets, they would be giving away their success, and they would loose massive amounts of money due to navigation of clients going to your Hosting dir...

I haven't been in the hosting business long, but directories just seem like an ok way to get some mildly good backlinks. They don't provide traffic unless you pay for premium spots, or you're an already established host with great reviews.

A lot of the directories have search capabilities, so users can find plans that match your offerings, so it's still a good idea to list your company in as many directories as possible.

Are there any automated submission services, or is everything manual for submitting into these directories?

I'm not aware of any, but since each directory is so different, I'm not sure how it would automated to begin with.