The free versions however are being used by many fly-by-night free directories because the script doesn’t cost anything, hosting is cheap and many hosts allow unlimited sites in their packages. Someone can make 100s of directories with free scripts by just buying domains in bulk (and that’s exactly some people have been doing). Maintaining 100s of directories is of course very difficult and hence automated approvals are the only method to keep these directories active. All these activities are giving a bad name to directory industry and premium directory owners suffer most because of this.

I personally think free versions are good specially for free general directories when new webmasters are just using their new directory to get a feel of the industry and work required to promote a directory. Some people always manage to abuse anything that’s good and that’s exactly what is happening with these free directory scripts. But these directories will die a natural death and people will be discouraged to make more directories if submitters decide not to use these type of directories.

What do you think about free versions of directory scripts?