I like the simple Google maps integration they have done on detail pages (not to mention the SEO friendly URLs of detail pages). As I said earlier, I like custom scripts and this one impresses me with great bread-crumbs on internal pages.

Also checkout the AJAX driven category selection mechanism, I wish PHPLD AJAX mod was as slick as this one. You should not that it’s a business directory and concentrates on business address and contact details rather than PR, Traffic etc. that usual webmaster centric web directories are prone to think about.

A lot of new categories on the business guide section of the directory. Though I miss and RSS feed on this section. Some of their articles are really good but there is no way for me to subscribe to alerts. (Maybe there is, but I couldn’t find it).

The review fee hasn’t changed on the directory, I do hope they will publish some coupons for DirectoryBlogger’s readers.

Conclusion:

iBizDir remains a solid business directory that I recommend business owners to submit their site to. For the PR hungry crowd, it’s  PR4 directory.

For people like more numbers, iBizDir has a PR 5 on the homepage and I am sure it will have many categories with a good pagerank. $34 as review fee for permanent listings and $68 for featured listings looks reasonable.

The directory has many business related articles in the Business Guides section. Initially I thought they have combined an article directory or they review some of the business submitted to their directory. But they actually post good informative reference articles in this section. I would call it a blog but the owners probably think it’s a guide and not a blog.

Here is what I like about the directory:

Joomla being used as a directory platform.

Slick RSS showing latest business news from Yahoo News RSS.

Articles for business owners so that directory is not just a ’submitters heaven’. Actual visitors looking for information will also come to the directory.

Regional listings

Loan calculator and currency converters. They can be really useful for business owners.

Details page has telephone number, address and a quick link to Google maps.

SEO Friendly URLs and unique titles and meta tags for each category page.

Proactively adding business / websites to their directory. All top level categories have one or two authority sites like about.com listed.
There are the things that can be improved:

I found many empty categories. They have filled top level categories themselves but I believe they should try and fill inner categories too.

Each category has a different suggest site page, which is very similar (duplicate content) and is being given 2 dofollow links from the category page. That’s a major PR leak

About page is also given a dofollow link.

Very small privacy policy (that could actually be a positive point for some)

Conclusion

Except the PR leaks it looks like a solid business directory that should add good value to a business owner submitting their websites.