MSN Small Biz Directory closed?

Is the Microsoft Small Business Directory closed? Seems to be the case.

Here’s the Add Your Site page, which details the costs and benefits, and has a link at the bottom saying Sign Up & Get Your Small Business Listed Today! But when you click that link, you end up here:

http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/online/services-transition.mspx

And that page says certain MSFT Small Biz Services stopped accepting new signups as of November 15th. One of those services is SubmitIt!, which is how the directory submissions were processed.

Now they invite new signups to sign up for one of a trio of business web services, none of which appear to include a directory listing. (And to no one’s surprise, the new services have very stringent and limiting system requirements.)

Weird all around. It would be a shame for the SBD to go away. That’s a well-trusted directory and a good place for a new site to start building quality inbound links.

[tags]directories, microsoft, small business directory, sbd[/tags]