Sorry for posting twice
but if you submit to directories that allow submissions without manual review then it is pretty dang close to a link farm or ffa site (I am referring to auto directories not the directory submitter above just my thoughts on automatic acceptance into directories). If the majority of your links come from websites that have a sole purpose of building links rather than providing useful content or resources then you will either be punished or de indexed by Google. When link building stick with websites that have a manual review.
Anyway here is the definition of a link farm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link_farm and the definition of a ffa site A free for all (FFA) link page is a web page set up ostensibly to improve the search engine placement of a particular web site. Webmasters typically will use software to place a link to their site on hundreds of FFA sites, hoping that the resulting incoming links will increase the ranking of their site in search engines. Experts in SEO techniques do not place much value on FFAs. First, most FFAs only maintain a small number of links for a short time, too short for most search engines to pick up. Second, the high "human" traffic to FFA sites is almost completely other webmasters visiting the site to place their own links manually. Finally, search engine algorithms count more than link numbers, they also check relevancy which the unrelated links on FFA sites do not have. Another drawback to FFAs is the amount of spam e-mail webmasters will receive from members of the FFA. Using an FFA can be considered a form of spamdexing
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-for-all_website
It may just be me, but a directory that automatically allows any link to be added seems pretty close to these two.
I believe everyone else here started building their list from scratch.
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