The directory idea actually goes again to a time before any of us can see right now. In the first half of the 1900s, scientists were worried about the preservation of all the research journals, papers, discoveries, and the information within - they were concerned that other scientists, students, experts, etc., would find it difficult to access years of gathered data if it wasn't stored and indexed in a human friendly way.
On the mid 40's a scientist named Vannevar Rose bush professed the value of keeping data - and had written and published a piece in the Atlantic Month to month. He believed that usable knowledge should be kept and indexed in such a way that the human brain could connect to it, relate to it, and effectively navigate it in a sensible manner. So, there we have a little history on the idea of a directory, but there was no internet yet, so let's not get too excited.
We can only wonder how excited these scientist dudes would have been if they could have published their cherished science work on the inter-webs for all eternity - and for everyone to have get to. Whatever that end result would have been for us living today - we can surmise with confidence that something similar could be the norm a hundred years from now (college-schmoledge? ).
Lets discuss Websites Like internet directories. An online directory is a site which has a large set of links back to you that go to other websites. The set of other websites isn't just published willy-nilly. Costly organized list so humans can click from an over-all topic until it reaches a certain bit of information. This is therefore the directory user can follow easy navigation through the pages and find the item (s)he is looking for (hopefully it will be there! ).
An example of the structure of a web directory listing might be like this if you are buying a destination to camp in Quebec, Canada. Their top category might be Canada and then progress to open more categories to narrow the search down as much as necessary. So - Canada - Quebec - Camping - Overnight - Fishing - RVs. Observe how that kind of works? My example is not perfect, in fact, it's probably in the wrong syntax, but Now i'm just trying to break it down for you a bit.
When a directory site is built, the categories are like a pyramid as they associate to each other- this is a way that the human brain can simply process the information (by association).
There are many Alternatives to directories on the internet. Some directories are incredibly specific, while others may have an array of categories. For example, a niche type directory site might connect with hunting, while a general directory may have hunting somewhere listed on it, but you have to navigate through several categories to find it.
If you've never used a directory - even when Yahoo was alive, you might want to give it a try - there are millions of websites away there on your preferred matter that a web directory site can help you find.
If you or a friend owns a website, you may consider submitting the website to a directory to help attract more traffic to the website.
