Directories
§A directory such as Yahoo! depends on humans for its listings §Site creators submit a description to the directory for the entire site, or editors write one for sites they review §A search looks for matches only in the submitted descriptions §Directories usually have much smaller databases than true or hybrid search engines
Yahoo is a good example of a Web directory. The Yahoo! directory is organized by subject. Most sites in it are suggested by Web users like all of us. Sites are placed in categories by Yahoo! surfers, who evaluate your suggestions and decide whether to add the site to Yahoo!.  This process tries to ensure that Yahoo! is organized in the best possible way, and includes quality sites.

Go to http://add.yahoo.com/fast/add?4210919 to see the "suggest a site" form.

But remember, the person who suggests a site writes the description, and in a "cold" search, Yahoo would only retrieve that site based on matching your search term(s) to the search terms in the description!  This is why "cold" searching is so sloppy.  But what Web directories do to make up for this is to create extensive categories and sub-categories in which you can browse the sites that are included.  But, keep in mind that these categories are not subject headings based on a controlled vocabulary.  They're simply logical headings which may be familiar to most people.

Take a look at headings in Yahoo! at http://www.yahoo.com or in AltaVista at http://www.altavista.com/