A comparative study of eight French-language Web directories, from the point of view of organization and content, coupled with a study of their use by a panel of French Internauts, shows differences between directories and a high level of specificity of each one. This diversity is observed in all respects. Editorial and structural choices, style of site descriptions, and grouping and categorization of sites all have a marked impact on potential uses of sites. Depending on the directory chosen, the information accessible to a user will differ, as will the way in which it is grouped together. We furthermore noted that two tools as different as directories and regular search engines (e.g. Google) were used by the same Internauts in the same search sessions. The structuring factor here is the user's requirement and task, that is, the information search, for which all available tools are mobilized.