Yesterday I browsed nearly 100 paid web directories. I'm running a paid Web Directory myself. I noticed that most of the directories that I browsed had: -lower PageRank than mine -much less backlinks -less traffic -worse alexa ranking -Advertising inside directory -were not SEO Friendly -did not rewrite their urls -had thousands of supplemental results -higher price -nearly all categories without PageRank -not offering Deeplinks But they had much more websites listed than mine. Are they adding websites on their own to make the directory look more "professional" or did they really sell really all those link? I'm selling 4-5 links/month and that's really a few for a directory I'm advertising heavily since 6 months with more than 40.000 backlinks. What am I doing wrong?? Even a lot of paid directories build on expired domains with lower PageRank, higher price, much less traffic, much less backlinks and with only PR0 categories had more sites listed... Some tips would be appreciated...I really can't understand this.
I understand this. So you think that all of those Directories added the links on their own instead of waiting for quality websites to add their link?
I don't like yearly payments but of course other webmasters may like : ) If you do , try to reduce sitewide links.Sell homepage links instead of that.Keep the listing pages clean.This is really important. ALSO if you are charging yearly payments,this shows that you are buying lots of links or you dir already has nice amount of links.Please use a custom theme John
I didn't even notice the yearly payments..... Get rid of that until your directory is more popular.....
Why should I get rid of yearly payments? I think that they help to keep the quality of a directory higher...I also noticed that most of the big directories changed their payment options from permanent to yearly...
Yes you will do that of course but its better to keep them perm till you get a custom theme and a pr6.Thats your decision
Ok, so I think i'm going to do it like that. I could design a theme on my own but I don't have time until the 20th of july. How much do you think will a customized phpLD theme cost me? (should I ask this in the buy-sell-trade/template section? )
Well, I did it immediately after your last post that convinced me to make links permanent until I have a custom template and PR6. Another question. Some month ago, Aviva was selling permanent links and than they changed it to yearly payment. Do the links that were added before this change, have to pay each year now or will they remain permanent?
Its better to ask the owner.But if i were you,i will delete them AFTER a year.and don't forget to send an e-mail to the owners before deleting.If you gonna delete keep the prices low.
Thank you for you tips, now I'm going to search for someone making me a custom template. I added you some rep for your help
for aviva case, I think link submitted before they turn to yearly is not deleted. Its not the right thing to do because customer paid you for permanent. To make your directory more valuable, you should manually add good sites to your directory especially those authority site for particular topic.
So, for example, in Web Directories i should add Dmoz? Or in "Real estate" Realtor.com? Do you mean this?
Well i can see his theory as matt cutts went as far as to say that the quality of sites listed will have an affect on the Quality of the web directory that allowed the website in so... I guess take it for what its worth... I myself did a few but no more then 10 and they were in categories that were empty... thx malcolm
I think your prices were very high (when you were only offering 1-year terms), if you are offering permanent links then they are more "middle-of-the-road" now. Look at this list of pr5 directories and you will see how high.
But as you can see, many of these directories receive much less traffic than mine and have advertising inside the directory. Those that have a similar alexa ranking, have higher prices than mine. Anyway, now links are permanent...let's see how it goes