Directories that Follow Google Guidelines
I have written a few articles about the history of Google and Directories. Google has always approved of Directories that follow Google guidelines and Google has penalized Directories that are not Google guideline compliant.
I have an article that gives the exact details of what Google is looking for in a Directory site.
gototom2.blogspot.com/2013/09/list-of-directory-submission-sites-that.html
One specific example of an excellent Directory that we recommend to our clients is JasmineDirectory.com
This Directory will help increase your direct click traffic and Jasmine Directory will send your site highly qualified web traffic, plus it is 100% Google compliant and will also help improve your websites rankings on Bing and Google.
JasmineDirectory does reject websites if they feel the quality of the site is lacking, however this just makes it better for the websites that JasmineDirectory does approve. It is a human edited Directory, however the staff is quick to evaluate sites and the price is less then many other top quality Directories on my list of recommended Directories.
Please contact us if we can help you with merit based link building that is 100% Google compliant.