In the current world of website development, marketing and SEO the term directory gets used a lot.
A quick check of the entry for web directory in wikipedia for "web directory" shows :-
Quote:
A web directory or link directory is a directory on the World Wide Web. It specializes in linking to other web sites and categorizing those links.
A web directory is not a search engine, and does not display lists of web pages based on keywords, instead it lists web sites by category and subcategory. The categorization is usually based on the whole web site, rather than one page or a set of keywords, and sites are often limited to inclusion in only one or two categories. Web directories often allow site owners to directly submit their site for inclusion, and have editors review submissions for fitness.
|
We can draw several conclusions from this, but I wonder how many real "web directories" there are out there.
- Does an empty category strucutre with a few webmaster sites count as a directory?
- Does a word/tag cloud have the right to be defined as a directory?
- Does a letter/alphabetical categorized bidding directory have the right to be defined as a directory?
- At what point does a "directory" actaully become a useful resource rather than a category strucutre whose sole purpose is to manipulate search engine rankings?
- How vast would a category strucutre need to be, and how many links within each category would a directory need before it became useful to ordinay web users?
Dirsensei Blog has a useful post regarding many general paid directories and some statistics. Interesting to see how many have editorially added sites and how many are just selling reviews/links to webmasters.
SEOMOZ have a very useful article highlighting
what actually makes a good web directory.
Fuzzuck recently wrote an article showing
the real meaning behind editorial integrity and how many directory owners claim to be editorially sound when actually they are not.
So members, directory owners - what actually does make a good web directory? Where can a newbie start and what can they learn from other directory owners? Unique category structures, extra resources, re-writing descriptions, not allowing spammy titles/anchor texts, adding sites themselves are just a few points of discussion.
Comments please.