It seems to be a rule of thumb these days that one shouldn't add too many links in one go, and to just add a few at a time.

This got me to wondering how you guys running directories get around this problem. I presume before you can launch the directory that you would need a whole bunch of links in place, to make the site more 'attractive' to users thinking of adding their links.

Do you think Google quickly figures out that it's dealing with a directory and would expect large insertions of links?

How do you optimise your page(s) for the SE's? I mean, you have a whole bunch of categories on the home page so presumably there's not a lot of optimising you can do, or am I missing something?

We guys with non-directory sites are always on the lookout for links from directories. Does it work the same for you when running a directory?