I'm thinking of starting a new directory using PowerSeek SQL. WSN links has been giving me some trouble because the expiration thing (which I use) seems to accelerate. So if I tell something to expire in 9 days to give people time to pay, it usually expires in 3 days or less. Upping the number of days doesn't help either. Of course the major flaw with WSNlinks is the support system...
I recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions to Jeff, the recent buyer of the Sevenseek web directory. Here it is:
>>>Can you give us a brief biography so that readers have an idea of who and what you are?
Hi James! Thanks for the interview. I'm in my late 30s and live in Ottawa in Canada. I'm married and have a 3 year old boy. I've been dabbling on the internet since 2001, but really only got serious about things over the last year. My main website is Aviva Directory, but I'm also working on a few other directories such as Sevenseek, Kwikgoblin and Apahcinc.
>>>When and why did you become a webmaster?
I'd like to say that there was a brilliant plan behind it and that I've been working in that direction all my life, but the honest answer is serendipity. I had an offline business and decided I could market it online. I got involved with creating the website for that and SEO'ing it and found that I really enjoyed it. Quietly sitting in front of a computer working provided a nice break at the end of a stressful day at work.
>>>Did you start off with the directory business or did you try some other online businesses first?
I ran a few other websites, but they tended to be more for hobby purposes and to learn how things worked on the internet. However, the running of my directories has been my first serious business effort online.
>>>Do you feel that your directories are significantly different from the competition? How are they different?
Yes. The main way is that I try really hard to ensure quality listings, both through strict editorial reviews of websites submitted and by constantly adding in quality websites on my own. Also, I've tried to give each directory an unique look and powerful backlinks.
>>>Is the web directory market saturated?
I don't think that the market for *quality* web directories is saturated. At least right now, there is always room more quality directories.
However, I do think that the market is definitely becoming more competitive. I think that a year ago you could safely say that there were 25 or so quality directories out there. Since then I believe that the number has doubled. There are now many newer directories where the owner is quite sophisticated and is putting large amounts of time and money into building his or her directory.
Also, I view the new "pay per post" blogging to be a type of competitor for directories in the sense that it provides an alternative way for webmasters to get word out about their website. To my knowledge this did not even exist a year ago and now there are many such services.
>>>What advice would you give to a webmaster who wants to start a web directory?
My biggest surprise in creating a directory is how much time it takes to do. I think you need to consider starting a web directory as a major investment of both time and money.
Naturally, this has been done before, but none of them have quite gotten it right. The Search Feature Directory has the right organization, including different categories for different niche directories. The webmaster, Mike, told me that he plans to make this the place to go for people who are looking for directories. I think he'll succeed, so I've already submitted two of my sites and I certainly wasn't the first.
The blog or news section has some good articles, including Mike's take on Matt Cutt's recent admission regarding Google datacenters and old information. He tells it like it is - Google is getting worse rather than improving and they haven't been very honest about it.
Anyway, this maight just become the place to see directories and have your directories be seen. Check it out.
I've found another directory you can use to help promote your sites. Forage web directory seems to have editorial integrity and seems to be fairly exclusive. For example the Health fitness category has sites with good information on various workout techniques and even though its linked from the homepage has only 9 listings. Of course too much exclusivity may become an issue as there are some empty categories like the health - history one.
What surprises me is that a directory looking this good and having so few sites listed is free to submit to. As I was writing this I submitted a site of mine to the education category. I submitted another site to the TV category. Assuming ther's no drama with these submissions, I'll have picked up two quality links and my sites will be on display in a quality directory. I'll likely submit the rest of my sites in that case.
JohnScott started an interesting thread over at the V7n webmaster forums about how Google stopped using his actual page title (V7 Quality Web Hosting - Voted Best Host of the Year) and started using the Dmoz title (V7n Inc.). The site used to be on Google's first page for quality web hosting. No longer.
VE Tom left an interesting comment on the topic on Internet Marketing Blog.
Good thing I've been saving my money. Bluefind is back. John Scott is determined to make it (once again) one of the premeir web directories out there. I wouldn't bet against him either.
Bluefind has been getting a nice overhaul to make sure its well-organized and also has a little green in the Google toolbar.
It's the perfect time to submit your sites and the best part is that they list quality content pages (not your sitemap). Go get your deep links (and don't forget that my directory also links to quality content pages)!
John Scott's internet marketing blog recently talked about web directories and what information to use when you're deciding when to submit. One things John mentioned was that you want only a few other listings on your page (and I'd add that they should be related, quality sites).
John goes on to recommend a directory called rubber stamped. So I checked it out, considering submitting my site to travel, but I guess travel information would be a more specific fit. But go to the travel information category, and you see a large range of sites from sites for expats to casino cruises to Christmas vacations, to Anchorage Alaska.
Sure they may be travel sites, but are they really related? I'll stick to directories that organize sites into more specific categories, unless they want to give me a listing on the more general top-level travel category page.
I just wanted to take a minute to blog about Cheetah Find web directory because I'm trying to decide how best to use it. You can opt for a reciprocal link, a one-way link (9.95 one time fee), sponsor a section for 20/month, or do everypage links for 100/month.
I don't think everypage links are for me. But sponsoring the travel section or paying 9.95 for a listing are definite options. The directory isn't too crowded, so a listing on the travel page would be sharing that page with about 20 internal links and 12 external links (10 travel related, 1 internet marketing, 1 camera). Then there are the 6 Adsense units that might drain a little traffic.
Now with the regular listing I'll likely be stuck on page 2 or 3 as listings are done alphabetically. If I sponsor the section for for 20/month I get real nice link placement under the recommended links heading above all the normal listings. Of course I need to contact them to see what kind of traffic that page sees.
Overall, Cheetah Find is a great looking directory that appears to be useful for humans and inspires confidence. I suggest taking a peek at the advertising page to see if they have a plan that can help you.
You might also want to check out the computing section and the Internet - SEO section since you wouldn't be here if you didn't want to read a little something about computers and SEO.
So my new dating culture site is being promoted almost exclusively in directories. Google now has 55 pages indexed. That's probably all of them. Remember that a month ago, Google had only indexed one page.
After a little more than a month, we're seeing 41 uniques/day. Some come from directories:
http://www.kingbloom.com 9
http://www.jtrotta.com/links/detail/828 3
http://www.jtrotta.com/Relationships 2
Some from search engines:
- Google 303
- MSN 140
- Dogpile 5
- AOL 1
- Mamma 1
Now I do have a few very powerful links (a few from this blog and one from the homepage of eslgo.com) in addition to the many directory links but I think this shows how valuable directory listings can be. Not only for SERPs, but also for a bit of extra traffic.
Keep in mind that dating is fairly competitive industry. Also, I did nothing to "beat" the sandbox. This was a brand new domain that was suddenly submitted to over 300 directories (100/week for 3 weeks) and also received a quality link from eslgo.com and a couple from this SEO blog.
I've just joined the massivelinks.com affiliate program because you are permitted to buy through your own affiliate links, effectively getting you 25% off your directory submissions. The reason I'm submitting to massivelinks is because like my own jtrotta.com they allow custom anchor text. I like that!
25% CommissionSo why not sign up for their affiliate program and submit your sites through your own affiliate link? Here's a regular affilliate link for me to use submitting my sites. You could use it ttoo, but you're better off getting your own affilaite account if you have a few sites to submit.No matter what the customer buys you'll make 25% commission from it. Presently Massivelinks offers three products, Basic, Basic Plus and Premium listings. The Basic listings are presently at 9.99$, the Basic Plus at 19.99$ and the Premium at 49.99$. That means that you'll make 2.50$ from the Basic listing, 5$ from the Basic Plus listing and 12.50$ from the Premium. The great thing is that a large number of customers own more than one site and submit multiple times. You can easily make 7.50$ - 12.50$ with one customer.
As we add more products you'll be able to take advantage of the new products. If and when our prices go up you'll also benefit from the rate increase.
20% on all sub-affiliates commissions
We offer a two tier program. This means that if you sign someone up to our affiliate program you'll benefit from their sales. This is done to encourage recruitment and you benefit from it. Let's say that a sub-affiliate makes 50$ commission, you'll make 20% of the 50$ which turns out to be 10$. The commission that you make doesn't affect the sub-affiliates commission. The sub-affiliate makes 50$ and you make 10$. Imagine having 10 sub-affiliates each generating 50$ each. That's an extra 100$ a month just from their commissions, plus yours.
The current prices are:
$39.90 for a top level category (e.g. Web directory - Travel)
$29.90 for a 2nd second level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations)
$19.90 for a third level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia)
$9.90 for a 4th level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia - Thailand).
The new prices will be effective Feb.1, 2006:
$69.90 for a top level category (e.g. Web directory - Travel)
$35.90 for a 2nd second level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations)
$18.90 for a third level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia)
$9.90 for a 4th level (e.g. Web directory - Travel - Accommodations - Asia - Thailand).
The pricing hierarchy is set up so that eople getting listed on deeper pages get the same value as people getting listed in top level categories. However that's not happening with the 39/29/19/9.90 prices).
As a result, too many people are asking me questions like "Can my site about tourist attractions in Athens go in the top level travel category?" The reason so many people ask is because the top level categories are a better deal than the deep pages.
So, the new prices should help me fix the problem that some webmasters running general sites get better deals than others running niche sites. You can still submit before Feb 1. to get the old prices on jtrotta.com.
On the link submission form at my web directory, the fact that listings must be paid for is made pretty clear. However over the past two weeks I've gotten tons of submissions from people who seem to ahve no intention of paying since they don't even submit emails registered with PayPal.
I checked my stats and it seems that seocompany.ca is the culprit, having listed me in their list of free web directories. If my job was to categorize web directories, I think I could do it correctly. This isn't rocket science. All they have to do is read.
I recently paid around 30.00/site (there was a volume discount) to have 11 sites submitted to 100 free web directories each. I'm not keeping track of exactly how many new links I end up with, but my inbox is full of approval letters so I know this was worthwhile. Free web directories are a very cheap way to get lots of inbound one way links (these were all non-reciprocal directories) but doing the submissions personally is too time intensive.
Aaron Wall from SEO Book has been a long time proponent of directories but he is beginning to wonder just how effective they are. He argues that few directories add useful sites unless they get lucky and one of the submissions happens to be a good site. I add useful sites as I find them, but not at the rate Aaron Wall would prefer. I'm only one man and my intent is not to have a large directory. I aim to have a valuable one.
He also notes that few directory editors see to a high ratio of quality sites. I don't know if I count myself as a Jtrotta.com employee, but I do make sure that sies listed are good enough for me. I have turned down numerous submissions from sites I though had too little content.
He also notes that directories and lists of directories often make up the bulk of a directory's link popularity. Certainly not the case with mine. I advertise on a few high quality sites including my own and while I am listed in a few directories, relatively few of my links come from other directories.
One thing he doesn't mention is the poor organization of most directories. I have refused many requests for top-level catyegory listings from webmasters who wanted link popularity at the expense of my organization. Won't happen.
So this blog is one of 192 SEO sites in the following Goguides.org category: GoGuides > Business > Marketing & Advertising > By Industry > Internet Marketing > Promotion > Search Engine Marketing > Search Engine Optimization
Some of you may be thinking something like wow that's 6 clicks away from the home page, hope it didn't cost much. It gets worse. There are 20 pages in that category. I'm on page 17 at the bottom.
This is an extreme example, but it illustrates why I started my web directory. I provide a much much better value for webmasters than I'm getting with this listing in Goguides.org.
Exercise Plaza now has 72 pages indexed by Google. This did not happen as quickly as I expected but it was still less than 72 hours since I added the deep links and less than 6 days since the site launched and acquired its first link.
Considering how difficult it was to get my online advertising blog indexed with directory listings mostly to the homepage, I think it's clear that directory listing should point no only at the home page but all deep into the site's content if you want to get indexed quickly. My directory submission service may be useful there.
PR for my directory categories has arrived and it only took about a month. In my past experience it often takes Google longer to update PR on new internal pages of old sites. Anyway, you're wondering how I did, right?
http://www.jtrotta.com/ is now PR 6. I'm happy to have separated myself from the PR 5 directories (there are just too many of those weaklings out there...) but I am surprised. I've been promoting the top level categories more heavily than the index page, with at least 3 (in most cases more) PR 5 links going to each top level category.
So how about the categories, you ask. Some are PR 5 but most of the top level categories are PR 4. After that it depends on how many subcategories there are. Fore example http://www.jtrotta.com/Art-and-entertainment/Music is PR 3 - so is http://www.jtrotta.com/Art-and-entertainment/Music/American-folk which is one level deeper.
However, we don't see a drop from PR 4 to PR 3 in every category. http://www.jtrotta.com/Communication is PR 4 as is http://www.jtrotta.com/Communication/Writing-and-editing one level down. Go deeper than that and we're at PR 3 - http://www.jtrotta.com/Communication/Writing-and-editing/Business
Which categories are PR 5? Education, Shopping, Sports, Transportation, and Travel.
I have more directory news, but I don't want to tell it all at once. Besides I feel like celebrating!
The directory for this site will be ready soon. I just launcehed one for my travel site, so if you have a travel site and want to trade links please visit my new travel link directory.
I actually have emails from 2004 from people who wanted to trade links with this site, but I was overwhelmed and had nowhere to put them all. Now that my directory is ready here's what I've been sending people:
Sorry it took me so long to get back to you. I certainly hope your site is doing as well as mine. The reason it took me so long to write back is because my little hobby site became very very popular thanks to excellent search engine rankings; I am currently getting over 800 unique visits every day!Of course that also means I've gotten hundreds of link exchange requests like yours and I didn't know what to do with them all as I had no links page. Today I got my link directory.
www.travelplanidea.com is my new directory. It has 130 links from www.travel-plan-idea.com including a home page link. There's also a link from www.jtrotta.com/Travel and http://eslgo.com/reciprocal_links/
Please understand that this is a hobby site and that I can not possibly add all the link requests I've gotten. Therefore I have to ask you to visit the directory at www.travelplanidea.com - then click on the best category for your site, click "submit new link", and fill in the necessary information. I'll make sure this is worth your time; the directory will get lots of traffic and link popularity.
You will also need to place a link on one of your pages to "http://www.travel-plan-idea.com/" using the title "travel information" Here's some html you can use: Travel Information - A travel blog with information on vacation plans worldwide, destination reviews, travel warnings, airline reviews, accommodations information, and more.
I am now an approved Goguides.org submission specialist meaning that I can submit sites for less than the normal 40.00 or so they charge. I haven't set a price for this service yet but I think it will depend on at least two factors:
1. Does my client know the URL for the GoGuides category the site should be submitted to?
2. Has my client written a good title and description, or do I have edit or rewrite some of it.
I'm very anxious to have PR filter down to the individual categories at www.jtrotta.com but in my experience new pages on exising sites usually have to wait months before getting PR. I'v tried to increase the speed here by getting high PR links pointing at each category. I've got at least 3 PR 5 links (and in most cases more) pointing at each top level directory and a bunch more PR 4 links pointing at each top level. Hopefully that speeds things up and makes the directory a better value for submitters.
The Kabooli Internet Directory is not the typical directory web site. Each listing contains a paragraph about the web site and ratings of several different aspects including content, navigation, and organization among others. Each site also gets an overall Kabooli Rating score. This site certainly gets an A for orginality in this age of cookie-cutter directories.
From an SEO standpoint, this site offers static, permanent links. Because of the review structure of the site, there is only one link per "review" page. Overall this appears to be a promising site worth the cost of submission (currently $19.99). The latest developments related to this site are updated regularly via its blog.
I got an email today asking to purchase homepage links on my new directory. Actually I won't be offering homepage links as I want as much link popularity as possible to filter down. However, in a few months the inside pages will show PR (they are already appearing in search results - a Google search for "patchara house hua hin" shows pages from my directory at 6 and 7 and that's as deep as my directory structure goes).
Of course you can submit later, when the internal pages show PR (I'm going for PR 5 on all top level categories and am promoting the directory not only with links to the index page but with links from topically related sites directly to the categories). However, after March 31 I won't be offering discounts. Currently you can buy 3 for the price of 1. Also, there is no harm in buying now since the links are permanent; they will still be there when the internal pages show PR.
A special introductory offer for readers of my blog.
Add a site to my new web directory. If I approve the site I'll add it to the directory. Then I'll invoice you via PayPal. When you pay I'll let you submit two more sites completely free (equal or lesser value submissions). When you pay write "I read your blog". If you decide not to pay, your link will expire in 7 days. Once you pay the link becomes permanent and the two free links will also be permanent. You may submit web sites or web pages to any of the following categories or their subcategories:
Art and entertainment
Communication
Computers
Education
Finance
Games
Health
Home
Industry and business
Internet
Jobs and business opportunities
Real estate
Relationships
Shopping
Sports
Toys and hobbies
Transportation
Travel
I just noticed that my language directory now has PR. I'm surprised that it only has PR 4 but each category has PR 4 and I expected that. Interestingly my WebQuests subcategory has PR 5...
When I wrote my SEO techniques that work, I mentioned paid directories. In the comments, an important question came up about your ROI on a directory link. Here are two I like:
UTN Web Directory is having a two for one sale until Jan 1. Now is certainly the time to sign up. It is being promoted all over the web, so it should debut with pretty high PR when Google gets around to it. For $69.00 you get a link to your site and 3 deep links to pages in your site. Submit to a regional category and you'll be put in different regions and categories so you can end up with lots of links. Same thing with the 29.00 listing, but you don't get the three deep links.
www.thisisouryear.com is a great value. Under $20.00 and somehoe every link page is PR 5 with ten external links. Other directories would do well to imitate their linking structure.
These two directories are certainly worth paying for in my opinion, especially now with UTNs 2 for 1 deal. I have paid for other directory listings, if I see a high PR category that one of my sites fits into well. I ahve this thing about paying the same money for a link deeper in the directory (which therefore has less PR) as sites who get into the high PR directory pages.
So my links pages on ESL go were driving me crazy because I had to do everything manually. I set up a new language directory using WSN links. Here's the official description:
Fully templated and translatable PHP/MySQL links portal script. Features unlimited custom fields, member system, voting and review systems, file uploads, markup codes, database backup, censor, advanced usergroup permissions including options to require manual validation of submissions, search engine friendly URLs, etc. Includes link checkers for reciprocal, duplicate and dead links.
My directory is still new and is PR 0, but should 5 when Google gets around to it. Nevertheless it shows up in backlinks. I checked the backlinks for one of my sites and there was my PR 0 directory URL. What's even stranger but more promising is that when I did a search for "ESL blog" (detailed in my previous entry: a few links) the language directory page about ESL blog was in the top ten! Now there's a page three categories deep in a PR 0 directory showing up in SERPs; that's pretty good.
If you read the comments about uncovertheweb and biz-directory, you know that many top directories use that expensive script. WSN links is something like 36.00 for three licenses (12.00 each time you use it) so that's what I'll be using when I start my own paid inclusion directory. I'll also be using it to mangae the reciprocal links for all my sites.
If you plan to customize it, customer service (via message board) won't hold your hand, but it's easy to install and they will help you on the message boards. I still managed to customize mine a bit by fooling with the css. It doesn't come set up for SEO. You can set it up for search engine friendly URLs and static links by clicking a couple buttons. There are help articles to walk you through it.
A great looking new directory. The premise is brilliant: You get 4 links on the category page; 1 to your site and 3 to content pages of your choice. You also get 4 links on a "business card page" plus links on "new sites" and "search results" pages. Currently only 24.95 to submit your site, but this is a new directory and the price is likely to increase as PR increases.
All Links Directory shows its results on a ranking system, so if I send them a lot of traffic, my site ends up on top of the results. I submitted my Giants site a while back, and they say I've gotten 16 visitors in return for four. That's not such a bad deal. It also has good PR and they don't seem overly picky about the anchor text you use. I'm just submitting the rest of my sites as I think this is a good resource.
Submitting to free directories is a great way to get 10-20 incoming links. Of course you can use paid directories to get even more links, but only if you have more money than me. Anyway, I spent the last couple of hours subitting to free directories. I have many more hours in front of me, but free links are free links...
A (http://www.seo-lab.com/directory-articles/best-free-directories.php - link disabled due to redirect: 10/13/04)nice list of directories that offer free submission and with links that search engines like. Now PR 4 links and higher are generally preferred, and by the time we get into the specific categories with many of these sites (Yahoo! and Dmoz! being notable exceptions) we're looking at PR 3 or even PR 2. But hey a one way link to your site is never bad, right?
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http://www.resource-zone.com/ is a forum where you can get information about DMOZ. The "Site submission status" is probably the most useful forum there for most webmasters.
I complained about DMOZ not being updated before, as I had submitted my update request and then heard nothing for a long time. Well I still haven't heard anything, but after checking on that forum I was informed that the update request is pending review. Well they have it, and that's good to know. Now if they would only do something with it...
http://www.seo-search-engine-ranking.com/ad_network_222.php