Monday, November 27th, 2006 by Andy Beal

10

Microsoft bCentral Directory Closes

Could it be? Have we just lost one of the three valuable directories (Yahoo, DMOZ and bCentral) - recommended by many when launching a new site?

It appears Microsoft has shutdown its Microsoft Small Business Center, including the bCentral directory. Users trying to sign-up from this page, are greeted with the closure announcement.

As of November 15, 2006 Microsoft will no longer accept new sign-ups for select Microsoft Online Small Business Services.

These services, previously marketed under the bCentral™ brand, include Appointment Manager, Banner Network Ads, Commerce Manager, Customer Manager, FastCounter Pro, List Builder, Sales Leads, SharePoint®, Submit it!, Traffic Builder, and Web Hosting Packages.

While the services appear to be re-branding as Microsoft Office Live, the new site has no mention of a directory. Yikes!

Hat-tip to Matt McGee for the discovery.


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10 comments on “Microsoft bCentral Directory Closes”

  1. The End of Microsoft bCentral Directory @ SEO Principle | Search Engine Optimization Blog Says:

    November 27th, 2006 at 3:19 pm

    [...] Unfortunately, they no longer accept submissions to their directory. As Andy Beal rightly noticed, the new home for Microsoft Small Business Services doesn’t appear to have a directory. [...]

  2. Brett Smith Says:

    November 28th, 2006 at 12:31 am

    Glad I got in when I did… Man… that is crazy that they shut it down for new submissions.

  3. Gareth Davies Says:

    November 28th, 2006 at 9:08 am

    This was one of the better directories for a new site to be included in for sure. It was reasonably priced and the deep link options it offered were useful. It is a shame to see it closing its doors to new sites :-(

  4. Scott Clark Says:

    November 28th, 2006 at 9:21 am

    Their listbuilder services have been degrading for a while, as I noticed and blogged in October.

    On Submit-It, I’ve lost some available submissions on there, despite having the bCentral account since around 2000, and nobody seems to be able to help me recover them. I should have used ‘em up. They should have been grandfathered in.

    So now we have … broken DMOZ. Dying bCentral, and, I think, a dropping influence on the Y! directory.

    I wonder if some of the 2nd tier directories will gain in reputation?

    Or, is the era of the pay-and-you’re-in directory over just like link-farms?

  5. 10 Reasons Why Microsoft Will Aquire Yahoo In 2007 Says:

    December 16th, 2006 at 4:47 pm

    [...] 9. Business Directory – Microsoft Just gave up there Business Directory efforts. Yahoo has always rocked it with there paid inclusion directory. Its by far the most respected business directory on the internet. Even at 300$ per year fee webmasters line up all day to submit there websites. Mean while Google’s Business directory is a laughing stock being powered by the corrupt DMOZ. [...]

  6. Netfreez Says:

    December 20th, 2006 at 3:47 pm

    I guess it is fair to assume that the directory will now carry more weight and value for those that are already included. I am glad I got piece of the cake.

  7. Gareth Davies Says:

    December 20th, 2006 at 4:25 pm

    I am not totally sure what they are doing here because I added a site on the 9th December 2006 and it went in Ok. It may be that they are not allowing new accounts to be set up but you can add sites to an existing account as this is what I did, and it was processed OK. It is a bit of a mystery what they are up to though.

  8. Colorful Box » Blog Archive » 10 Reasons Why Microsoft Will Aquire Yahoo In 2007 Says:

    December 24th, 2006 at 5:20 pm

    [...] 9. Business Directory – Microsoft Just gave up there Business Directory efforts. Yahoo has always rocked it with their paid inclusion directory. Its by far the most respected business directory on the internet. Even at 300$ per year fee webmasters line up all day to submit there websites. Mean while Google’s Business directory is a laughing stock being powered by the corrupt DMOZ. [...]

  9. Web San Diego - WebSanDiego.org » Blog Archive » MSN BScentral - My New Favorite Link Directory Says:

    January 8th, 2007 at 11:57 pm

    [...] Nope. That’s not a typo. The S is purposely injected into BS. After having paid and setup nearly 25 listings with MSN bCentral (their small business directory) we heard they were shutting down the bcentral directory. Ok, so before rushing to judgement, I decided to figure out what that would mean for our listings.First, I found that we still had our listings, had access to our control panel, and could even submit more listings! (more on that in a minute). Great news. I mean, I understood that this was likely to mean that the directory pages (business cards) would remain online, and that since we had pre-paid for a large listing package we would be able to submit the remainder of our listings as well. [...]

  10. » Microsoft bCentral is Changing » SEOpittfall » Archive - Search Engine Optimization by pittfall! Says:

    December 18th, 2007 at 8:43 pm

    [...] Microsoft bCentral is Changing [...]