Bidding Directories & Word Clouds ... 2 peas in a pod?

Ok, so I can see the difference on the surface between to two but was just wondering if any of you see a difference from an SEO point of view. And as a directory owner, how can you put out a product that is *cough* worthless to the customer *cough*

In my opinion, both of these types of "advertising" are about as spammy as link farms. Neither type of script does anything to collect the links according to topic or relevance. Word Clouds are typically on 1 page and the only way I can see relevance is if it were split up into categories (good example, I see a little merit there).

Bidding Directories are even worse because all the ones I have seen just lump the listings together according to alpha-numeric order. ??? What good does that do? It's like writing a page about astronomy and linking to your bollywood sites. If it looks like spam and smells like spam ...

I get it from a directory owners point of view, it's all about the $$$ but as an advertiser, why? Do you really feel like that link is going to help sell your widgets? Isn't buying links for PR what Cutts warned against? You surely can't say that will bring you targeted traffic so how can you justify it?

Perhaps there is something big I am missing here that someone could enlighten me on. Directory owners, how do you justify selling a bad product? We have a bad enough name already without this blowing up in our face.

 

I can't really get into discussion atm, but I can understand what you're saying and where you're coming from. I do own a Bidding Web Directory but as with anything I do, I will try my best to innovate the script. a sample of what i already have had for quite some time can be seen here: www.biddingdirectory.com

I have a few more things to add to it and would like to take it a step above and beyond anything of the norm as far as these types of sites go.

will be back a little later to see how the thread it turning.

Rob

 

FWIW, we do a lot of Internet marketing consulting, and to be honest, we don't see any value in placing our clients on these types of sites.

That's not to shoot these types of sites down, its just that the value to our clients is not clear.

 

there are few bidding directories that have categories so to say all bidding categories is spam is a little bit harsh.

 

their is better stuff to spend the money on IMO

 

To be honest I've never quite seen the point of the word cloud sites. A bunch of mostly unrelated words displayed on the same page - just seems to fly in the face of all of the basic concepts of good SEO. And if the word doesn't get enough activity I could see quality sites remaining hidden in the darkest reaches of the directory.

The bid for position directories are more of a mixed bag. An early site http://the100lists.com takes the best of both traditional categorized directories and implements a bidding system for the front page and internal categories. I think Chris has done a really great job with the site.

The bid for position directories that are essentially a free-for-all would not seem as useful as many of them are by their nature going to have too many outgoing links on the page as well as too many unrelated links (unless of course you end up with a bidding war by directory owners like the100lists has).

 

1. well its simple...bragging rights

2. Buying PR? who in thier right mind would spend ummm a couple grand
for a link? someone whos got money to burn and basically dont give a shit.
what your seeing thier is not even about PR but about "who the F i am"
if you havent figured it out you never will.

3. I just did explain it ...

thx
malcolm

 

Bidding Directories & Word Clouds - both are different things my friend.

Word Clouds:
1. Hundreds of links on homepage with no description, no nothing!
2. No inner categories or folders.
3. No limit on links that appear on homepage (unless the owner decides too).

Bidding Directory:
1. Not more than 5 or 10 or 15 links on the homepage.
2. Each link with description and details page.
3. Inner categories for well sorted out links.
4. Limit on links that appear, Links goto pages if more.

Also take it this way, we are buying links for SEO and ranking. Whats PR... I know only PS.

Please tell me what smells like spam or looks a link farm?

Its easy though.. who will answer this one?

 

An honest answer is worth some rep. Thanks for breaking it down for me so that I can understand it. Vanity is an excellent reason, and one of the few answers that I would actually accept. Unlike ...

They are just night and day aren't they.

The first sentence of this thread "Ok, so I can see the difference on the surface between to two but was just wondering if any of you see a difference from an SEO point of view." I see how they are superficially different but the average, run of the mill, free directory (as long as they actually look at the links they accept) has TONS more value than either of these types.

This is a great example of what I am talking about. The sites listed are not grouped by businesses and but by the 1st letter of the domain. All the sites listed in there are all directories (that I saw) so I guess they are themed relatively well, but is there any value to this in the SEO world?

Sorry dude, I just call it like I see it.

I guess my problem is that I see no value to dropping links in irrelevant places. If you BH (not me), Comment & Wiki spam have very little value unless the links have to do with the content on the page. Remember all links are not created equally and ones from irrelevant places have to be ran through the wash before the link power can actually be used.

Links & content go hand in hand and are the basic building blocks of SEO/SEM but somewhere in the mix everyone got lost in PR and link building and turned a blind eye to content both on and off the page. Where did we go so wrong that we confused quality promotion with throwing money in the fire to make it burn hotter?

 

You know better than to count me out on anything.

It *will* expand.

 

I actually assumed it was intended to be a directory of directories. Excellent, I have some ideas on how this concept could be a profitable business model for both the owner & consumer. I can't wait to see your take on this. I'll be releasing mine in the near future. Any beta testers around???

Also, on a side note, I am an advocate of open source scripts and do not believe anyone has the right to stake a claim on an idea but it is a shame to see your efforts getting abused by phpld. If you didn't have enough problems with clones of your mods.... Ooh well, at least business is still good for you. I hope that :evil grin: meant you had something up your sleeves.

 

i wouldnt start a bidding directory because personally i wouldnt pay to be included in one in the first place.
i think like anon said they need to become something else to be of any real use.
bragging rights they are used for yes but as malcolm also said there is only a group of people who will get involved in this

 

i think its a good idea. each option is based on how much the user wants to spend for exposure. the more they spend the more exposure theyll receive, why not? two birds one stone. the big spenders will more than likely make adequate purchases on both...

 

i understand bidding directories arent for everyone, but if you look around at the existing bid-directories, there are people spending up to $1,000 for the top spots. i think its safe to say that smaller scale bid directories will still receive submissions but the amount of each bid will be directly related to how much promoting and marketing the subittmer feels the biddirectory site will offer... just my thoughts...

 

Make sure you know what you are jumping into when you say this. If money is all it takes to rule the SERPs the internet has gone to the big fish and we will have to resort to trickery to compete & our successes will be very short term. Now tell me, who has more money Microsoft, Google or all us losers hanging around this thread put together.

What this represents is a sad day for the internet.

 

i agree, but only partially because i believe this form of advertising has been around before the internet...

what im referring to is homepage exposure. correct me if im wrong but the reason why theres a bid is for positioning on the homepage is to receive the most exposure. similar to SERP you want to be #1 on the list right? the highest bidder will get the best positioning, so obviously whoever submits the most money, will achieve that position. same with word cloud sites, whoever can spend the most money to create a large font, eye catching text will see the most exposure on that homepage.

in that sense yes, i believe whoever has the deepest pockets will have the top spots thus resulting in greater exposure

 

What sucks is I'm going to have to incorporate logic into the script. *ugh*
It's so cumbersome. mehhhh.... all in due time. For now I promote.

 

nahhhh what sucks is the taxs that uncle sam will expect to get

lol.... life goes on friends im sure an0n or another coder will do somthing to bring it to life

thx
malcolm

 

hahaha i just could not resist myself. my bad

 

The ones with a genuine category structure have a place as they provide relevant links and you in theory you will pay what the link is worth. The ones that are just alphabetical are just the latest in a long line of link farm fads such as word clouds, pixel sites, etc...