Is it only webmasters who visit directories to submit their sites . Or people really looking for sites that belong to specific category? or Mixed traffic I'm an experienced webmaster but gonna launch my first directory so curious about directory traffic. This question is for every one - directory owners(I think DP Members own some of the best directories) and directory visitors?
Bro both webmasters and surfing visitors visit directories but now a days the main theme of dirs is to provide you a backlink and help you index your sites quickly and improve your keywords search. So i can say 95% visitors are webmasters and the remaining 5 % you can say general surfers.
General directories would get mostly webmasters but niche and regional directories will be visited by general surfers.
I agree with boblord666. Only webmasters do visit general directories to add their site. I don't know of anyone who has gone to a web directory to look for stuff. Most directories do not rank well anyway and are unlikely to appear in search engine results.
Thanks for your answers. I was very confused in this regard. Many general directories are even promoted as places to get back links. May be niche and regional directories would be getting more surfers other than webmasters.
I haven't done the math in a while, but my bigger niche directory was at one time running 90-95% visitors vs 5-10% submitters. My smaller directory has far less traffic but also gets many more visitors than submitters. I think there's three main things that will influence the type of traffic you will get... 1. How badly Google indexes sites in a particular topic. For example, does Google tend to place a greater value on well SEO-ed article on a topic vs an article that may not have good SEO but actually conveys good information? Google is getting better but still misses in both of my niches. 2. How well maintained your directory is and if you can get your interior pages ranking for competitive non-directory related terms. 3. Where and how you promote your directory. If you focus on places like DP and directory lists only then you will be less likely to rank for anything other than directory/submission related terms. With a niche directory, it's easier to become active within that niche and promote it to both submitters and users at the same time.
Depends, just a plain general directory you will probably just get webmasters placing links. A directory placed in a site with updated content you will get traffic from the site and also from SEs. Say you have a..? show dog site and it has a forum, articles and a directory then you will get people from the site browsing the directory to see what is in their area. Also google will see your listing as more creditable mixed in with all the other high traffic and high ranking pages and bring up your listing in relevant searches.
Good thought, only worried that when a webmaster is focusing to keep visitors inside his site then adding a directory will be a way of moving them outside of his site as well. What are the advantages that you guys see as motivator for a webmaster to include a directory on his niche site?
I think a niche site can only benefit from a directory if they keep it very closely tied to their niche. That way it becomes more of a resource and link exchange between like-minded folks than a quick and dirty way to add more pages to a site.
Yes, I also subscribe to your opinion. Will think about this matter, over the years I do know quite a lot of interesting sites in the same area and even exchanged site logos with some in the past. Let's see.
Webmasters, basically. However if you rank well for a certain keyword for a certain category or listing page, that page may display on search engine results and be of actual use for the general population. Seen it happen with directories, seen it happen with mine. It's not completely useless traffic-wise.
Money.. plain and simple, people will pay for listings and links in a decent directory. Other then that I can think of no reason to have a directory.
Sure, but if it was just about money then I wouldn't really sell any link since the price would be too high in order to justify the losses. I would just prefer to make the service available to help people find other forums, preferably of smaller dimension so that we can both grow together than linking to some big forum that wouldn't give a d##n about us. In that sense, this would become a better reason to provide a directory in a niche area than just asking money for links.
Well links have to be worth something or you will get no money. As far as "help people find other forums" - Google? If you just want to "help" people their is a lot better ways then building a directory.
Each one has their own perspective. Personally, I don't see links as a way of getting money. Never worked for me nor I'd do it for the money in either case. Of course that your mileage may vary.