Google's John Mueller said that generally, web directories do not help with SEO or rankings. Google has said in the past that directories aren't the right way to build links to your site and then early, Google warned not to use directories for link building purposes. In fact, directories charged removal fees during the big link purge mess.
Now, John Mueller said on Twitter again, generally, linking to and getting links from web directories do not help with SEO. Here are the tweets:
@rushikeshjoshi generally no.
— John ☆.o(≧▽≦)o.☆ (@JohnMu) February 25, 2017
Last week we covered that linking to high authority sites doesn't help with rankings according to Google.
Forum discussion at Twitter.