sarahk
Mar 22nd 2004, 1:00 am
I'm an editor for a couple of these online directories where all the sites are manually approved before being added.
One of the rules is that pages aren't added. Therefore the following are ok:
http://www.mysite.com/
http://example.mysite.com/
http://www.mysite.com/example/
but not http://www.mysite.com/interesting.html
I find that alot of sites cover more than one topic. Makes sense and there is no problem with that. But it makes it hard to add the site to the right category in the directory if each topic is denoted by a page and not a folder/ directory.
The philosophy, I guess, is that the files in a directory are a clear grouping. A folder can be deleted or renamed just as easily as a page, but there you go. That's the way it works.
So, webmasters, when setting up new sites consider how your site will be viewed by the directories when deciding how to structure the site.
A working example:
My husband's site is http://www.propertyinvestor.info (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/). It covers property investment coaching in New Zealand, probably of limited interest to anyone reading this but I'm not trying to drum up business, just to give an example.
When I created the site I had 3 pages to talk about the books he has written.
* books.php
* toc.php
* toc2.php
No need at all for these to be in a separate directory, no management problems with the 3 pages.
However I decided to try to submit the books category to one of the directories. Don't know if they'll get listed, but it's worth a punt.
That would mean submitting books.php, which wouldn't be acceptable. So I reworked the site and added a books folder, renamed books.php to index.php and I now have
* /books/index.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/index.php)
* /books/toc.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/toc.php)
* /books/toc2.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/toc2.php)
In my .htaccess I added a 301 redirect which tells the search engines and browsers who are looking for the old pages that the content has moved permanently and where to find the new pages.
/books/index.php is now the default page, so I can submit http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/ to the directory. Fingers crossed, wait a few months and I'll be able to report back how I went.
Either way, it was worth getting the site in order!
Sarah
One of the rules is that pages aren't added. Therefore the following are ok:
http://www.mysite.com/
http://example.mysite.com/
http://www.mysite.com/example/
but not http://www.mysite.com/interesting.html
I find that alot of sites cover more than one topic. Makes sense and there is no problem with that. But it makes it hard to add the site to the right category in the directory if each topic is denoted by a page and not a folder/ directory.
The philosophy, I guess, is that the files in a directory are a clear grouping. A folder can be deleted or renamed just as easily as a page, but there you go. That's the way it works.
So, webmasters, when setting up new sites consider how your site will be viewed by the directories when deciding how to structure the site.
A working example:
My husband's site is http://www.propertyinvestor.info (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/). It covers property investment coaching in New Zealand, probably of limited interest to anyone reading this but I'm not trying to drum up business, just to give an example.
When I created the site I had 3 pages to talk about the books he has written.
* books.php
* toc.php
* toc2.php
No need at all for these to be in a separate directory, no management problems with the 3 pages.
However I decided to try to submit the books category to one of the directories. Don't know if they'll get listed, but it's worth a punt.
That would mean submitting books.php, which wouldn't be acceptable. So I reworked the site and added a books folder, renamed books.php to index.php and I now have
* /books/index.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/index.php)
* /books/toc.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/toc.php)
* /books/toc2.php (http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/toc2.php)
In my .htaccess I added a 301 redirect which tells the search engines and browsers who are looking for the old pages that the content has moved permanently and where to find the new pages.
/books/index.php is now the default page, so I can submit http://www.propertyinvestor.info/books/ to the directory. Fingers crossed, wait a few months and I'll be able to report back how I went.
Either way, it was worth getting the site in order!
Sarah