I am sure all of you have heard by now that a lot of web directories are currently being affected by what is called a “Google penalty“. I am not sure whether this is the correct term for it, but it seemed that these directories have suddenly lost rankings and even have some of their pages removed from Google’s search index. And we are talking about supposedly high ranking sites here! Not that little directories that nobody knows anything about, but well-advertised, well-respected and well-maintained web directories. I must say, I am pretty worried about that. And the doomsayers are saying that it will affect all directories in the near future.  Whether what they are claiming is true or not, I don’t know. But I find it weird that Google is only penalizing directories. I mean there are a lot of websites out there that are crap, even blogs and forums, some of which virtual spam centers.

Surprisingly, my own directory don’t seemed to be affected by all these. Searching for my own domain name, my web directory pops right up in the searches. It looks like I am off the hook for the time being.

Shouldn’t all sites be affected if Google decides to take action against “bad neighbourhoods“? Why pick on directories in the first place? I know that there are a lot of pathetic directories, but truth to be told, web directories are usually started by people planning to make some money. And in order for them to make money, some effort must be made to create a reasonably working directory in the first place. It’s not like forums or even blogs where webmasters usually create and then go. You know what I mean? Compared to crap blogs/forums/websites, they have certain (okay, okay relative then) amount of quality in them.

I also believe that this is not really a penalty but perhaps a glitch or a “dance” in Google that went wrong. Google could be doing a shuffle or some modification in their algorithms for their Search Results and something went haywire in the process. Hey, you know how complex it is? Tweaking one part of the algorithms will almost definitely affect some other part and thus this is the result. Anyway, don’t get too worked up if you are a web directory owner, time will tell. I have heard that some of those directories which was supposedly being affected is now climbing out of that hell and things are starting to look rosy for them again.

Looks like there is talk about creating an Association of Web Directory Owners in the Digitalpoint forums. Is this a good idea? As if the Inquisition that controls life and death of directories in the Digitalpoint forums is not enough. I mean if you were to look carefully at what is happening in the directory subforum of Digitalpoint forums, you will realize that it’s the leaders who are in charge and they are the ones who have the last say. Not the community. And these lies in the hands of only a few people. They really control the web directory industry through monetary manipulation, peer pressure and of course media control and propaganda. I am a regular visitor to Digitalpoint forums and I realize that these group of people control the market by buying their supporters(who are usually web directory owners themselves). So do we really need such an association? Do we need more control from these people? And who will be the people in control? Will it be the same old group?

And will webmasters doing the submission be faced with the problem of monopolistic prices? If an association was to be formed, will prices be fixed? You know like OPEC? And with this price fixing, will we then see less innovation since there will be a lack of motivation for web directory owners? That could also spell the end of the web directory market. And how will big directories react to this? Will this association engage them or will they be seen as a competitor? Do you really want to go against big directories? But if such an association engages these big directories, will it be swallowed whole by these big monsters?

How about membership? Will it be something like a pay for membership thing? Or is there some sort of standard for web directories to be included? And who will setup these standards and who will be the judge? If membership to this association becomes very important for a directory owner to succeed, will it be prone to abuse by those with the authority? Is there anyway to regulate the behavior of those in charge? And will this association’s policies be transparent or will it be like those little rich boys club? Greed is the main driving force and I am sure all sort of abuse will happen. Just take a look at DMOZ and some of it’s editors.

Sure, having such an association can result in a better web directory scene. Perhaps we can see better web directories and directories with a higher editorial standard. And we will definitely see less of crappy directories out there. With a clear set of common rules and regulations, we can hopefully see better directories out there as these directories strive to follow these rules. Webmasters doing submission will have a more informed choice and a better understanding on which directories to choose when they do their submissions. It won’t be so messy as we are now. I mean the web directory market right now is really bad.

However we must always weight the benefits of creating such an association, especially when it is likely to be abused. Not only that there is no guarantee that it will benefit the directory owners, it may create more problems for us in the long run. I hate to see the association being used as a tool to further benefit some of the already powerful players in the web directory industry.

This question is for web directory owners. What type of sites do you find acceptable to be included in your directory? I am talking about accepting sites in the general sense. Not  for a niche market or anything like that. I find it very difficult to figure out a way to truly do that and still make your directory a valuable asset for your visitors. How do you define good websites in the first place? And how to tell whether a website does provide some valuable and useful information? And with this information how do you judge a site? I know all of us have difficulty to determine whether a site is acceptable or not. It’s not an easy job to do.

For me, I first look at the following:

1. Design of the site. Yes, sure it does not mean that a well-designed website is good or even has any content. But someone made the effort to beautiful their site, so that someone did some work. It’s shouldn’t be too far off for me to say that the site owner takes his/her site seriously.

2.  Relevant content. This is a very important criteria for me to judge a site. Content must be relevant to the site’s subject and topic. No point having tons and tons of information that are meant to be spider bait but of no use to the visitors. Visitors expect certain information to be on a site and these should of course be related to the main theme of the site. Even flash sites can have relevant information. Flash game sites are an good example.

3. Writing style. A simple read of the main page and you can at least understand what the site is about. It’s about how well the content is written and it would show that the site owner has made the effort to really write content for their site. I have seen a lot of poorly written sites which I am sure anyone reading it will know that the site isn’t serious.

4. Text? Image? Video? For me, it doesn’t matter. I am no Search Engine, so just because a site has a lot of texts doesn’t make it useful to me. Seriously, images and even video really help build up and improve the usefulness of a website. Readers will get bored too if you don’t have any image to spice up your website. And images or videos are important to help illustrate your point, it’s a superb tool if used wisely.  And I don’t need to mention to you how popular videos are on the Internet. Just think YouTube.

5. Links. I don’t mind links, just that a lot of websites, they have too many links. And worse, I can even spot those paid links, mainly from irrelevant and useless links to crappy websites. And these links are placed on their mainpage! What I find attractive are links to related information on other websites. Hey, that’s what the Internet is about, a linked group on the web so that people can find useful information easily. These is no single website on the Internet that had any the information in the world and it doesn’t need to refer to other sources. That’s next to impossible.

6. Advertisements. If a website has too many advertisements, then I will give it the boot. No visitor should be tortured into seeing so many flashy advertisements that it becomes more like a billboard than a website. Even if it does provide good information, it’s just way too distracting and it reduces the effectiveness of the site itself. I would say if a site has 1 or 2 advertisements on their page and it is not too prominent, that’s okay. Hey, webmasters got to eat right?

Hope that these little tips will help you when the next time you need to check your directory. If you have any good tips or techniques, I would like to hear about it. And good luck on your web directory!

Do any of you think that paid directories are good directories? It seems that a lot of people, even experienced webmasters believe that paid directories are good directories and those free directories are just spam listing sites. I wonder how did they come to this conclusion? Does a paid directory has good quality content which free directories don’t have? Does a paid directory means that their editorial integrity is higher? I don’t think so. I mean, a lot of paid directories will accept any site which pays them a sum. They don’t really care about whether the site being submitted is of a high quality or not. So how can anyone say a paid directory is a quality directory? Sure, there are paid directories which are of high standard in design, content and user-friendliness but there are also free directories having the same thing.

I think I need to burst this ridiculous idea that paid directories are always better directories. They are not. In fact, I would be more suspicious of paid directories, since their sole purpose is to make money through paid submissions of websites. Would their editorial standard be up to mark? Would they accept a site just because they are paid? I am sure that there are a number of paid directories which do. And how do you definite quality sites in the first place? The problem propaganda. Paid directories often have the means to “brainwash” us into believing anything they want. Their constant media blitz led us to that paid directories are good directories, which in my opinion is mainly a lie.

Of course I am not dishing paid directories. There are indeed good quality paid directories out there. And since these directories have a higher income, they will be able to hire editors to help manage and maintain their directories. This will definitely raise the standard of the directories.  My main objective of this post is to tell you that there are free directories which are of very high quality as well. You should look out for them in your next website submission job.

I am pretty sure by now that you guys know that I have two directories which accept listings. One of them is a Singapore small business directory while the other is a general web directory which only accepts PR4 and above sites. What this means that these directories are niche, catering only to a specific group of people. However, it seems that no matter what, there will definitely be spammers who think that they can get away with it. In my Singapore small business directory I have people submitting websites that are not located in Singapore, forums, blogs, chat sites, sites which offer free MySpace Layouts and so on. I mean seriously, these are not even business or business-related websites at all and they expect to get listed?

For my the other directory, the general web directory, I would understand that not all doing the submission understand what Page Rank is, and I do get a lot of submissions. However, the amount of spam I get is also impossible. Of nearly 100 over submissions per day, around 5-10 listings will get approved. And a lot of these sites are really the spammy ones like selling all sorts of enhancement drugs and stuff. One look at the site and I ticked on the delete option. There are even those sites whose URL is really long and ridiculous, I too sent those to the rubbish bin. But yet, they still continue to pour in. And you can’t stop them. You can try of course, but in the end you will just give up.

I don’t understand what drives these spammers. Although it doesn’t take a hell lot of effort to submit a website to a directory, but the thing for spamming to work, spammers must do a lot of submissions because their sites will mainly get rejected. So just think of the effort needed for it to really work. So why bother in the first place? Won’t it be better for spammers to create content rich sites instead? The chance of getting rejected when submitting to a directory is less too. Won’t that get a better result than spending time and effort to submit a spam site?

As reported by Reuters. Yes, that’s a hell lot of money involved. I guess this is good news for both directory owners and those people involved in selling domain names. The high price paid for this domain is sure to boost sales and prices for both directories and domain names in the near future. And everyone in the domain name business is talking and possibly drooling over it. Business.com is just a business directory but the name alone is a very good draw for investors. I mean what is easier than typing business.com when you are searching for businesses? But in all seriousness, it is really worth that much? I doubt that even Microsoft.com is worth US$360 million and it is a very pretty well-known domain name. But I could be wrong, it could be worth more to Microsoft Corp but I doubt it will be worth US$360 million to others.

I don’t understand how can someone spend so much on a domain name. Sure, it is very easy to remember but if you think carefully, Google.com and Microsoft.com are not particularly easy to remember domain names either. But we all know it and I am pretty sure most of us can type out the domain name without much problems (I hope). It’s just that both Google and Microsoft had spent millions of dollars in name branding and these names are now stuck in our heads. So won’t it be cheaper to promote and brand your own name itself of getting such a domain name?

But well, I am not a millionaire. If someone has so much money to spend on a domain name, he/she probably had done something right and who am I to argue? Maybe he/she is seeing something that we mere mortals don’t? X-ray eyes or some psychic ability that can look deep into the future? Perhaps he has some grand plans for this domain name? Who knows?

And anyone knows how much my domain name (autho-rity.info and autho-rity.com) is worth? Do you guys think that one day, it is possible for someone to pay US$1 million for my domain name? Nothing compared to the ridiculous amount paid by RH Donnelley Corp though, but I guess it is enough for me.

After reading a few forums, I have stumbled among a rather good blog which provides pretty good advice for all new directory owners -  8 Reasons Why You Should Not Start A Directory. I agree with most of the points, especially the one that says that directories take a lot of time and effort to create and maintain. And I might add, it takes a lot of patience as well. New Directory Owners should not expect everything to be smooth and easy. They should not expect easy money with minimum work. A directory really takes a lot of time to create and to maintain a high editorial standard. The listings which a directory owner allow in his/her directory makes up the content of the directory, so it had to be good. You need to really browse through the site first before approving it. Descriptions of the listings should be comprehensive and unique enough so that visitors can understand what the site is about and the listings should be correctly categorized. And just think of the time (and money) you need to spend on advertising and promoting your site. You definitely need to frequent forums and promote your directory to those already well established. They can help get customers and visitors to your site.

I also agree that you need passion to start a directory and not just think of your directory as a money making venture. A lot of directory owners gave up after starting their directory in just a few months, accomplishing nothing at all. I really doubt that a directory will be successful in just a few months, it will probably take a few years before you can see the results of your hard work. And it is the passion that keeps a directory owner going.

Sad to say, it is almost impossible for a directory to offer something unique to the web directory industry. Even if you have something unique, it will be copied three folds before you can even login to your control panel. Yes, it’s that competitive. I think that the most important thing a directory must provide is to offer better value to their customers. Actually, that is simple. You just need to have a attract targeted traffic to your site’s categories and listings. And please make sure your directory is Search Engine Friendly.

The thing I disagree with the article is the domain name. Directories don’t need a directory sounding domain name for it to work. Seriously, if your domain name isn’t spam sounding and if you promote your directory well, it doesn’t matter. In fact, if your directory domain name is unique sounding, all the better, seeing that there are probably thousands of “something-directory.coms” out there. Unique is good in this very crowded market.

I am pretty sure that all free directory owners (free as in free submission) know that they have 2 main types of visitors. One of these types of visitors are those who visit your directory to submit their sites. I wonder whether these kind of traffic can actually be considered as traffic? Because most of these visitors are usually webmasters or those hired by webmasters (like SEO Companies or freelance websites submitters) to submit their sites to the directory. In my opinion, they are not real traffic.

I have two directories. One of them is a free general directory and the other is a Singapore small business directory (also free). So, in general terms, one is catered for everybody and the other is only for Singapore small businesses. The main traffic for the general directory goes to the submit page of the directory. However, for the Singapore small business directory goes to the different categories I have in the directory. And the visitors mainly come from Singapore. I got these information from my WebStats program. Well, you may not think that this is significant as traffic is still traffic, no matter where it goes. But in my opinion, it isn’t. Directories are meant to for users to come and source for information and this information should be arranged in such a way that web users can easily find whatever they are looking for. Hence the name “Directory”. So if the majority of your visitors goes to the submit page, then it is useless as a directory. Your directory then cease to be a directory and becomes just an SEO Tool.

It is also important to note that my general directory attracts web users to the submit page while my Singapore small business directory attracts users to the different categories I have. It stands to reason that a specialized directory (or a niche directory) is more useful to web uses then just a general directory which users don’t usually visit to search for information. How many of us really visit even big name general directories to search for sites anyway?

Is the general web directory market in big trouble? All you have to do is to look around you on the Internet and you will realize one thing - there are a lot of general web directories. General as in “everything”. And with this huge amount of directories come a big problem, the market is getting saturated. Everyday you will see new directories being launched, all hawking the same thing - human edited family friendly general directories.

Sure, once in a while some directory owner will announce a new feature in their directory - like allowing deep links in their directory or their customers will get more details for the listings and so on. But even with these “great” features, what really makes them any different from the thousands of other directories out there? Basically, they are the same. Some directories claim that they advertise and promote their directories heavily or that their directories are famous throughout the Internet. Yes, that may be true, but then is there anything really impressive about a directory in the first place? And how do you define a good web directory? Content? Advertising? Uniqueness?

The Web Directory Industry has been stagnant for quite sometime now. And it’s my opinion that most of them will not see any significant difference in the near future. Cool features alone will not help a directory. Being famous alone will not help a directory either. Trust me on this. It’s time for directories to start “specializing“. Instead of casting a wide net and hoping to catch a huge haul, directory owners should look at niche markets. They would offer a lot more than what general directories can provide and I believe that soon, people will start to realize that and they will move away from general directories.

Well, I am here to share with you guys some of my thoughts on the web directory industry again. This time it is on big and well-known directories. The current buzz on the directory scene is well, to grow in numbers. No, not grow big but grow in numbers. These people think that there are strength in numbers. If you were to look at the famous web directories, you will realize that the directory owners are starting new directories and in great numbers. They no longer own 1 or 2 directories, they own like 5 to 6 directories.

I understand that directories need to grow and expand, but having like 5 to 6 directories isn’t the right way to go. By all mean, expand your directory and add more features and content, but how does having so many directories do that? It will just dilute the attention and the care a directory owner can give to each directory and hence the quality will definitely drop. Sure, some directory owner employs editors to do the dirty work for them, but still it isn’t the same thing as the (famous) owner himself doing it. And, is this really good for the web directory industry on the whole? This industry is already overcrowded and by adding more directories into the fray will not help.

What we really need is high quality directories, not just more directories. Being successful in one directory, does not mean you will be successful in another. And being successful can only work if a directory is well-maintained and well-oiled. This requires effort and time. And owning is web directory is a full-time job (especially if you are a commercial entity), it’s not going to improve by having MORE of such directories. I would rather directory owners spend more time on their current directories rather than creating more directories and asking me to “invest” again. Feels like I am being cheated, you know what I am saying?