What's the difference between a directory
and an index?
Directories (such as Yahoo) use human
editors to compile lists of websites which are presented
in a categorised format. Indices (such as Google)
are databases of pages that are automatically collected
from the web by “spiders” and automatically
processed.
Both directories and indices are usually,
for the sake of ease, considered as “search
engines”. There are benefits and disadvantages
to both methods. Generally, directories hold good
quality, informative sites while indices often contain
many spam pages — however, indices usually contain
many more individual pages (and potentially more information)
than directories.
