New directory, in a niche market!

[The Club Crawler]

Hey all I have launched a directory, though have decided to step away from the traditional look and feel that most have!
This is not really a promo post but more of a feed back request. Basically I am very new to directory building, and as such would like to hear some thoughts from "People in the know" before I go ahead and spend the rest of my free time for the next 3-4 years promoting this.

If you have a site that would fit in one of the categories then by all means submit it, but like I said I am looking for quality feedback and was told this was the place to find it! The link is in my profile as my home page.

Thank you all in advance

Adam
The Club Crawler:D

[an0n]

looking pretty good. nice job!

[MeetHere]

looks awesome and unique.
which script ?

[malcolm1]

Yes indeed.... ummm how bout the url now :D

[Artifexus]

I didn't see a URL (I know html is disabled for you) but I assume you mean: http://www.theclubcrawler.com/

Definitely different. Nice idea.

Pages loaded a bit slow for me, fyi.

Also, may want to flesh out with some navigational links to the homepage, about, etc, even if they're in the footer.

Cool design and neat concept.

[MeetHere]

Yes indeed.... ummm how bout the url now :D

He said, look his DP homepage ;) http://www.theclubcrawler.com/

[jg123]

nice going, funky style but the images need some work because I gave up on the directory page after about 40 seconds of downloading with a cable connection.

[The Club Crawler]

Awesome feedback! Thank you all!
I am adding a blog feature to the directory now, if I can get it to work!
Where I will choose one stand out submission each week and blog it. Though with the directory being so new, I might be struggling to get a submission each week at the moment hehe

[mikey1090]

Its definately unique. Make the images smaller file sizes - its slow.

Don't use too much Adsense.

[The Club Crawler]

Hey thank you all for the positive and constructive feed back!
I got the blog up and running also. I will see what I can do on the images try and speed the site up a little. Started getting a few submissions already I am well stoked!
reps to you all

[pipes]

Are you guys playing an april fools? :confused: its got to be :)

To me its MFA, not bad looking , but its definately MFA.

[The Club Crawler]

This is not a MFA site pipes, yes I have ads on it as I want to make some cash, but I also want to create a quality resource, I have invested a lot of time into this and plan to invest a hell of a lot more. IMO an MFA site is one that is thrown together full of stolen or free content articles that is launched with a few hundred pages of recycled content. I think you need to unplug and see the difference between sites that are trying to utilize adsense and sites that are designed to simply get clicks. But, oh well, to each there own, time will tell.

[pipes]

This is not a MFA site pipes, yes I have ads on it as I want to make some cash, but I also want to create a quality resource, I have invested a lot of time into this and plan to invest a hell of a lot more. IMO an MFA site is one that is thrown together full of stolen or free content articles that is launched with a few hundred pages of recycled content. I think you need to unplug and see the difference between sites that are trying to utilize adsense and sites that are designed to simply get clicks. But, oh well, to each there own, time will tell.

Its April 1st :) thats all.

To me its not a directory, its a niche site.

[Rod_Purnell]

Great niche and concept! Love the look and feel. Best of luck with your project, you have obviously put a good deal of thought into this. I'll submit my niche to your food category for your review when I get a little time.

GREAT JOB!

[kendall]

Nice site. i would shrink the images on the categories page and lose the skyscaper adsense blocks. As much of a Black Flag/Henry Rollins fan I am, his banner doesnt look right where it is. probably personal preference

[The Club Crawler]

Kendall, I agree with you on the Henry Rollins Banner, I added it to ad some side imagery to the page last minute, I ham currently designing some more relevant banner type images to liven the site up somewhat, and am currently reducing the adsense to 1 ad block per page. As much as you think you have a layout concept working, it is not until you actual launch that you start to see things that need tweaking, at least with my work any ways. Rod looking forward to seeing you site, thanks a bunch for the feedback!
Pipes no worries at all, be keen to hear why you think this is more a niche site than a directory, I know I am stepping away from the norm, but that is partly why I decided to do this project in the first place, to make something a little different and possibly unique, though with so many websites running is that still possible? anyways thank you all again, all feedback and criticism is most welcome so long as it is constructive...hehe

[YMC]

Looks cool, takes absolutely forever to load. If I weren't looking to be part of this conversation I would have left fairly quickly because it does take so long to load.

One of the big things that jumps out at me is that there is very little text on the pages which is going to make it harder for you to rank in the search engines. The ads on several of the pages make this all the more noticeable. Music - Submit -->Ads for tractors and earth movers - lol.

I looked at the Music category. I would see if I could have it set up so that if Top Listings is empty that you do not even show that box - looks dumb empty.

The little Adsense unit between the Top and Other listings really ruins your layout, would definitely dump that one. I would also come up with something different than Other Listings as that really makes anything in that grouping look second rate.

The submit page does not have a "Submit" button.

I like it; it really fits the niche. Then again, if Pipes is right and this is an elaborate April Fool's joke - you got me. Though I do think we need to get more and more away from sites that look like directories and more like 'real' sites and I think we will be seeing more and more sites like this one.

[malcolm1]

Hello...

ahhh ok ... now i see it :)

Ive added it to entertainment niche list ;) looks good


thx
malcolm

[mikey1090]

Its April 1st :) thats all.

To me its not a directory, its a niche site.

Perhaps you could give a definition of both and explain how you came to your decision.

[pipes]

Perhaps you could give a definition of both and explain how you came to your decision.

Of course well is April fools day so ive read about 50 joke threads so far.

I see 1.2.3 yep 4 adsense ads, i click on gay and lesbian and dont really know what to look at first (waits for the jokes :) ) um more advertisements than content so far, the submission form seems quite web directory, but a submission form dont make a site a web directory, also your not supposed to have adsense on non content pages, say the submission page.

Not because it doesn't look standard ;) im all for different, ive said before theres a very thin line between being a directory and not being one, they dont have that freedom that other websites do, try and take them too far and they become something completely different.

How many blogs you seen that dont look like a blog? a see lots of wordpress based sites, they are so worked on and feature filled, officially they are still blogs.

I know adsense doesn't always display the correct ads for a site, when i looked its unfortunately showing ads for cranes.

[The Club Crawler]

Ok I have started removing a bunch of the adsense, now you mention it it makes sense, have been designing some banners that suit each category myself and adding them in place of the adsense. Also reduced the image sizes on the categories page, I had over looked a few of them and they were huge, so that should speed up the load time a bit (I hope) Also thank you YMC for the "other listing" looking second rate spotting! another oversight of many many to come I am sure. changed that to "Quality Sites" or is that too corny? any suggestions? I tell you all I am super stoked I was referred to DP, you are all awesome! updated version is uploading now, if you could recheck the speed of the site for me that would be awesome, In japan right now and the net is super fast, hard to see any delay in load time from here! Thanks a million! I am off to bed another 3 am finish time, development is the best fun ever huh? hehe

Also I am planning on adding some more content to each page, at the moment it is such a new site I am not really expecting too many visits, I would say a few more days and nights at it and it should be in much better running order...i.e less ads more content and design elements, also hopefully more links to good sites!

[The Club Crawler]

Hi all, I have worked on some of the issues mentioned earlier, What do you think about the site now?

[JamieG]

Far too graphically intense. Not only does it take a week and a half to load it staggers when scrolling and I've got a very powerful system here. If your going to use photos etc, you really need to make them either thumbnails or better just gifs. Not going to comment on the content, Gay's and Lesbians don't rock my boat, I suspect it will put a lot off but attract those who aren't so bothered.

[The Club Crawler]

i am just running of a laptop at the moment and it loads fine?? I am reworking it slowly to speed it up.
people who are put off by gay,lesbian,straight metrosexual etc are not my preferred audience to tell the truth. but thanks for the input, all the feedback i have received here is great.

[Artifexus]

Yeah, still loading a tad slow - and the scrolling on each page is choppy, too.

I still like the design/concept.

You might be able to pull in a good amount of traffic/awareness/links with the blog.

Good luck.

[JamieG]

You seemed to have crunched the graphics a little? Its certainly loading a lot quicker than it was and that's even in firefox. Like I said, content aside I think its great and wish you all the success you get.