Well if they eat well they might gain weight. But yes with time there are things that loose weight , like for example theaters/cinema. Cheers
You can't generalize across an entire industry ... I think we become a little jaded because we see so much spam, both within and from outside our industry. But not everybody is bad. There actually are good drug companies, and other real businesses out there. The same with directories I see a small percentage surviving and thriving ... Poor planning and execution will likely be the reason 80% will fail in the first year just like any other industry. Five years from now the 1 or 2 surviving sites will be respected and search engines will be happy to crawl them.
u make logical points there. The main weakness is the fact that directories are still dependent on SE and not the other way round. I believe that this is one of the most glaring risk of directories that I'm not sure how to mitigate....
I think as long as directory owners remain focused on quality and provide valuable services/info to its visitors, search engines will continue to have respect for directories. Plus, a lot of directories generate good income for Google's Adsense. I don't think Google would be willing to sacrifice that over a few bad apples within the industry.
actually, i'm not so sure abt directories generating good revenue for G. They have much much more profitable sources than directories....
Well, I was referring more to the bigger directories such as Business.com. And, yes there are other sources that are more profitable to them, but I really see no reason for them to downplay directories. There are many spammy directories, but at the same time, there are many quality ones as well. So, Google shouldn't punish the entire industry over the bad ones.
Oh we totally forgot to define directories purpose these days, they basically play a role to provide u with free links to your site in your defined field/area of site. Not sure what their purpose was in the past, but seems like today and in the future they shall probably serve those purposes.
You're right...the main purpose of a directory was to provide visitors with a searchable index of helpful websites or businesses. Now, it seems that directories are made for the benefit of webmasters, and not for actual visitors. In any case, I won't bad-mouth directories because they've definitely me out a lot.
Hey no modifying quoted text ...yaa i caught ur post too and quoted it, but changed it when i noticed u edited it By the way it sounded so funny
Niche directories may offer better search experience than all search engines: If you search in a specific category, you will get the exact search results while Google has to consult his fuzzy logic and sponsored links to return unexpected search results. General directories may be the weakest link in the future -I think
You can be a Great DMOZ Editor and will rise up in ranks quickly. ps: I don't see any Psychic website in your sig links. Maybe you can predict the weather too.
Personally I think you are going to see some changes in industry real soon ... Anytime there has been a market dominated and monopolized by a few lazy fat cats, a young upstart comes in with a better idea. Look at how Yahoo! and Altavista owned the search market ... before Google. It is also easy to take over the industry when so few "think" they own it. Again ask Ford how they lost their monopoly to GM. The time is ripe for a major innovation ... everybody hates DMOZ, Yahoo! is so very expensive, and neither one cares about serving the customer --- webmasters. At least Google is honest, they are only there for the searcher. Keep your eye on the Patent Office door ... it could be sooner than you think.
popotalk , Sorry for sounding negative about General directories. Niche directories are the weakest links, Bye Anne Robinson
As an industry, no. There's still going to be a need for human-edited results. But on an individual basis, the average directory will probably lose out in the search engines. This is because the numbers of indexed pages continues to rise (although Google isn't mentioning its index size on the home page any more). So it's more and more a case of getting lost in a sea of other results, the same as with any other websites.
I think directories will remain strong for a long time to come--though they might change in looks. Directory owners are not dumb ---they are always trying hard to innovate and change and adapt. The basic law of survival as Darwin said --struggle for the fittest. I think most directory owners know that and the pioneer of them an0n already declared that he has 3 more mods ready. So whatever Google changes in future --I think the industry is matured enough to adapt quickly and keeps floating the banner of the industry. G can never ban these human edited directories due to several factors. It needs them for its survival as the biggest SE. While other SEs base their search results on coding and tags ---Google's is based on contents and links --different from others ad thats why it has become so big--DIFFERENT. Take out the directories --and see how many links you gt from related-good sites. --very few. That will make G un-popular. So it needs directries for its own interest --and might force us to chage our looks but not the fabric.
directories are very important, most of the search engines take the site lists from dmoz, so i feel directories will have there importance. yahoo already has it's own directory, so dose google in dmoz has! directories helps in backlinks, pr, traffic etc, also it is good for advertising any services. so i feel directories will continue to have importance in search engines!
If the directory actually pays attention to the quality of its links, it will gain MORE trust with google imo.