do link directories send traffic?

Its all depend on how popular the directory is ..if it popular directory ..then you definitely get traffic ..its quite difficult to estimate how much you get ..but you will some traffic ..but that will all targeted traffic

I think many people use them for backlinking. But if the directory is pretty popular, it should send some visitors.

Depends.

Put it this way: if you're in the adult market (not that I am) then, oh daddy, do they send traffic. Oodles. Freaking oodles.

So - and it may seem like stating the obvious - it really depends on the market.

Any link has the potential to send traffic. The big unknowns being will it and how many.....and the answer to that is......?

no i dont thinks so its just to create back links rest hardly send any traffic. but if directory is popular and with good readers then that can help.

In my 7 years of experience . They do help us to get good rankings in the previous years.

Thanks for the replies, but I know that these directories carry SEO value.

What I don't know, however (and what nobody answered yet) is why would people (NOT webmasters, but common people who have nothing to do with online marketing/advertising/whatever) go to such a directory. It seems to me that link directories are only visited by webmasters when they submit their websites to those directories and that's about it. Which makes me ask further: what's in it for the owners of those directories? Why would they bother to nurture them just so they get "spammed" by webmasters since ordinary people don't even know about directories in the first place? It doesn't make any sense.

Can someone (who, preferably owns/owned such a directory) explain to me if common people (again I repeat, NOT webmasters, but everyday Joes that don't even know what SEO mean) ever visit these directories, in what percentages and, more importantly... WHY ? Why do/would average Joe visit a link directory? What do they hope to find there?

Yes ,sometimes it helpful for get backlinks from High PR websites.

Haha... I love some of the replies. Poor, OP.

I'll try to shed some light, based on my experience of directories.

Before the net matured, and before the arrival of big players in the directory game (Yell, for instance), directories were more frequented by the surfer and, thus, more likely to be setup by the webmaster. There was more of a need. Now, of course, Google has entered the game, so have social networks like FB, and a dozen or so other big players, and there is less chance that a regular surfer will frequent your newly created directory unless you're dealing with a directory tailored to a micro-niche.

The directories I have experience of in 2014, and utilize (well, that's the Royal I; my team handles this stuff), are local directories. You'll find these rank well, the older ones, and those that stick to a product / service niche (hotels, for instance) do very well trafficwise, proving good for free traffic or paid traffic and helping (somewhat, but not massively any more) with SEO.