iGuides - Web Directory With A Promising Future
iGuides is a premium general directory, which tries to create a unique comprehensive platform of useful web resources for the net users. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s worth noticing that the owner of the resource defines his directory as:
The definitive source for a full collection of internet guides and web guides, iGuides.org offers the internet resources essential to a premium paid directory.
The directory clearly includes a number of positive key traits, which should be present in all modern directories. But the first and the most important trait that I have noticed is that all of the submitted websites have their own unique titles, and helpful descriptions.
What I mean is that the editor of the directory takes his time to review each site and writes unique title and description for each site that differs from the information in the meta tags.
In my opinion, this should be done by every directory owner to ensure the quality of his directory and directory?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s unique content so the directory would not be banned for the duplicate information.
I also like the design of the directory. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s very user friendly and it has good navigation system. For example, for the user comfort, sidebar of featured categories contains popular categories so a user would be able to find popular sites quickly. The fonts are the right size, and the colors are not too bright, and yet are used effectively to draw attention.
What I also like about the directory is that the editor submits quality resources there himself for free. In my opinion, everyone should do so, since without it any directory looks kind of dull, and creates a negative and wrong belief that it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s not very popular and thus is not worth submitting into.
iGudes is not only a standard directory, as you might have noticed already. It also offers a good collection of articles and how to guides. Its article directory covers a lot of general topics and is written well by professionals. Its how to guides is basically a collection of tips and tricks on any topic that interests you.
How To Find Quality Directories Quickly
There are thousands of directories on the net, and everyday more and more directories are created. Unfortunately, while the number of directories increase, their quality and relevance dramatically decrease. Therefore it becomes harder and harder to discover new, unique and quality directories.
In this article, I will cover basic steps on how to find quality directories, and at the end of the article I will review the newest way to discover quality directories.
As some of you know, one of the most popular ways to discover new directories is to browse forums. Forums where directories are generally announced can be found here. But the problem with forums is that it’s not the most efficient way to find directories since you waste a tremendous amount of time hunting the good ones with no way to quickly tell what is or isn’t a quality directory to submit to.
Another popular way to find new directories is through Directory Critic. Most of you have heard about it and know how it ranks directories by user ratings, so further description of the service is unnecessary.
You can also use Directory Inbox, to discover new directories via your inbox. You can find more information about it here.
Finally, there is Directory Rate
So What is Directory Rate?
Directory Rate is a collection of directory lists, which are helpful for webmasters, SEOs and site promoters. Currently, it contains nearly 800 directories organized by comprehensive categorizes, including paid and niche categories, and ranked by DR (Directory Rate Strength), with the most popular category probably being the free directories category.
What Makes Directory Rate Unique?
Just like PR makes Google unique, DR makes Directory Rate unique, and all listed directories are sorted by DR. Moreover, DR helps you to save time by allowing you quickly spot only quality directories. Unlike a tool like Directory Critic that ranks directories by user ratings, and therefore the top directories listed are not necessarily the strongest, Directory Rate ranks its directories by their calculated DR and so gives you a much more accurate idea of what is likely to be a truly strong directory.
How Is DR Calculated?
According to the Directory Rate site, DR is calculated by many different metrics and factors but, probably with good reason, they don’t reveal much about the actual algorithm. However, from the information they do give along with my own thoughts, its probably a combination of a directory’s back links, PR, PS and SE friendly content that are used to calculate DR.
Conclusion
I like everything about Directory Rate except one thing, and that is that it’s currently impossible to find out a DR score without actually submitting your directory. I hope, sometime in the near future, that it will be possible to find out a DR score without submitting a directory as I feel many users, including myself, would find it very useful.
Overall, Directory Rate is a genuinely useful tool when it comes to helping you quickly find the right directories to submit your site to, and it’s certainly possible that their DR Strength score may become widely used by the industry in the future to determine a directory’s strength.
Interview With Threebuckchuck - LinksQuitters Owner
With the success of the Interview With A Directory Owner Who Has 50+ Directories, I’ve decided to have more interviews with directory owners. I like the interviews because they reveal interesting information about directory owners and tips, the ones they used in building, maintaining and promoting their directory.
Today, I have an interview with Threebuckchuck, he is the owner of LinksQuitters Directory. In this interview, he tells his points of view about the directory business and his his directory specifically. I find the tips really interesting and helpful and thus you should read this article.
Q: First of all, introduce yourself to Directory Kit?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s audience. Is there anything unique about you?
My name is Dave Post and I am the owner of the LinksQuitters Directory. I am 47 years old, live in Michigan and work full time for IBM.
On the advise and with the cooperation of my wife Anne, I started building LinksQuitters Directory in November 2006 and I don’t strive to be unique; I strive to be the best at what I do.
Q: What got you into making your own directory?
ODP crashed October 2006 and we needed something to do. My wife likes to edit a lot and she needed a replacement while they were down so I started LinksQuitters.
Q: What do you think is a quality directory?
A: Quality is subjective, depending on the characteristics of the desired results, so a quality directory would be a directory that has a good category structure and good useful links in every category.
A quality directory should have listings of quality sites in every category, with more added daily so it keeps growing. Nice PR, design and mods are a plus, but content is our #1 priority and for a directory, by definition, content means listings.
Q: What was the hardest part in establishing Links Quitters?
It wasn’t hard to find a directory script, but it was a little harder narrowing it down. It was not hard to find a template either since there are a lot of templates to choose from but we decided to use Anon?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s Singe template right now but we bought some custom templates and are trying to decide which one we want to use.
Q: Now Links Quitters is a pretty popular directory. How did you promote it at the beginning?
A: I submitted our directory to a number of directories, mostly free, some paid. I did not buy any other type of advertisement. I have my directory link in my forum signature but I don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t buy other people?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s signatures. I have also sponsored a couple of templates.
We submitted to other directories that looked like the owners were working on them, skipping the ones with a bunch of empty categories. PR is irrelevant when we submit, we look at the categories and the listings.
Q: What are three things that you dislike about other directories the most?
- Maybe you dislike when people use default template too often? That doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t bother me.
- Maybe when they use default category structure? I hate that, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s lazy and says the directory owner doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t value his own directory enough to create categories that fit his listings.
- Maybe you dislike when people create link farms and not directories? Yep, I hate that too.
Q: What are three factors that determine if you will submit your site into a directory or not?
A: First off, design and PR do not determine if I will submit my sites into a directory. I consider whether the directory seems well maintained or if it has a lot of errors and dead sites. I check to see if listings have been added recently and if they?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re in the right categories. Last, I check the submission guidelines and the category that I belong in.
Q: Can you give one advice to beginners in directory business out there?
People should only take on a directory if they really like working on directories because it takes a lot of time to do it right, and doing it wrong is just a waste of time and money.
If you devote a lot of time to your directory, you shouldn’t need a lot of money to begin with. Maybe a little to submit to other directories but I wouldn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t recommend overspending.
Q: How do you see directory business in the next 5 years?
A: I see the directory ?¢‚Ǩ?ìbusiness?¢‚Ǩ¬ù splitting off in two separate directions. Some will be just a part of a larger webmaster resource. Others, like LinksQuitters will stay focused on the directory itself and become more comprehensive, growing day by day. I also think that there will always be directories. Some will be better, most will be forgotten.
Q: Any interesting developments for Links Quitters in the future that you can tell us about?
A: After Google is done messing around with everyone’s site, I am planning to upgrade LinksQuitters to the latest version of the script I use and a new custom template.
