Directory Kit
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I’ve recently seen a thread on DP, Directories Battlefield - Let the battle begin. The title got my attention immediately. However, after browsing the thread, I did not get the right information for me about the Directories Battlefield. I wanted to know: how did that person come up with the idea, what’s the basic idea behind it, what main features it offers and many more. So I decided to contact the owner. He kindly answered all my questions, so now I can share it with you.

First of all, the owner is loredan. He owns a number of good directories, including Yhay, Yrgo and Advertising Directory. Loredan is also the owner of the Directories Forum.

Here are some interesting questions that I asked him:

1. How did you come up with the battlefield?

I was trying to find new and unique ways to advertise and promote directories, and it has been always a challenge for me. I’ve just found a script and I thought it would be nice to adapt it a bit and to do something new and useful for the directory owners.

2. What’s the basic idea behind the battlefield?

The idea is pretty simple and unique. The directories will compete against each other trying to get as many votes as possible. I think it is a good way to check the quality of the directories. If a directory won 90% of its battles it is a good sign that you should submit your site into that directory.

3. List and describe three main features that battlefield offers.

Free Inclusion - Everyone can add his or her directory to the battlefield for free.

Extra Exposure - By showing the actual directory, battlefield gives free extra exposure for every directory listed.

Free Traffic - Submitting your website to directories won’t increase your traffic that much. There are just a few directories able to send you some click a month. However, with battlefield, I think every directory listed has received more traffic in 3 days than they get from all other sources, from which most of them are paid.

4. Are there any competitors?

There are no competitors as much as I know at the moment. I’m sure there will be some xerox guys ready to copy the idea in the future.

5. What are your future plans for the battlefield?

I’m working on something to allow people to bid for their sites in order to be on top of the list. The directories on top of the list gets more battles, more views and more traffic.

One of the most frequently questions that directory owners ask themselves is, ?¢‚Ǩ?ìOk, so do I accept this site or not??¢‚Ǩ¬ù. This question arises since quality is one of the most important aspects in any directory and thus every directory should only have quality sites.

When you are just starting a new directory then that question is not a big deal since directory doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have any sites in it. You accept as many sites as possible because you think that you can always delete them (if you are not in any contract with that site). But remember that it takes less time to reject it at first then finding it and deleting it later. So follow these simple 10 steps whenever you have troubles figuring out if certain sites should be accepted or not. Also remember to follow these steps in the order so you can save the most time. It’s worth noticing that four steps don’t not require you to visit website while other six do.

• 1. Does a site follow the guidelines? First, always check if a site follows your directory?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s guidelines. An example of a good guideline can be found here. This step is fast and easy, so always do it at the begging because it’s going to save your time.

• 2. Is all information filled? Is it all filled correctly? How many times have you received submissions in which some information is filled incorrectly? For example, a web site title might be sometimes capitalized, site description might include the url of the website and other useless undescriptive information or even worse sometimes description is simply a collection of keywords. Also, information is filled incorrectly when site is submitted to a wrong category. So if you see a site and the information is filled incorrectly and you have no time to edit it (since you receive hundreds of submissions per day) you might want to reject it.

• 3. Is domain name suitable for the website? I own a directory of phpLD Directories and when I receive submissions of sites, which are not relative to its domain it rises a suspicion for me. For example, I receive a submission of directory which has a domain that is not ralevent to the directory. Something like BuyWonderfulToysToday.com and it’s even a general directory. It makes me thinking that the owner had a good pr domain and just wanted to make quick buck. This type of directories can disappear really quickly and thus you will display wrong type of listing in the wrong category.

• 4. Is site an exact duplicated of another site that is in the directory already? A lot of people have different domains for the same site. They wish to increase the pr of their domains and thus their profits. Why should you display the site again with only different domain?

• 5. What’s your first impression? The first five seconds determine whatever any user would like a website, bookmark it and visit it once again. Or will leave immediately. So relay on your first impression. In other words, if you like the website you should include it since other might like it too. But try to be as much unbiased as possible.

• 6. Is the site under construction? Is there any information on the website? You accept sites so your visitors will get useful information that they seek for. So why would you accept a site that doesn’t have any information on it?

• 7. Is the information useful? There might be some information on a website, but first there should be enough information (not like ten words on each page) and second it should be useful information. Useful information is one of the aspects of a quality web site. The information can either be useful or entertaining but both types of information should bring some benefit to visitors.

• 8. How’s web site’s design? Is it user-friendly? Design is another aspect of a quality site. The site doesn’t have to be perfectly and professionally designed. But it should have design that helps reader to interpret the information. Alas, more than one third of the websites do the opposite effect.

• 9. Are there a LOT of ads on the website? If there are too many ads on a website, this means that the owner is not really interested in providing users with helpful information. But he is only interested in the making money process. This means that the website is not going to be updated a lot and eventually will be sold and might not be working at all.

• 10. Would you buy the website you want to accept? This final question is the most important step here since if you want to buy a website it means that you find it useful, well-designed and thus should include it to your directory.

To conclude, whenever you have hard times thinking about site inclusion, always relay on your personal opinion. If you find the site useful and will visit it again then include it. But if not why should you include “garbage” into your precious directory?

I hope these basic steps will help you to make your directory more useful to others, more profitable and thus you will enjoy building it. Any comments about the article is much appreciated, so don’t be shy and leave a comment.