Hi Friends and Directory Section Members, I had a long dream to start a quality free directory and finally a lot of things have been set my end. All major TLA's have been registered to establish a brand. The Directory would be Free forever and never turn paid. I have never made a Free Directory and kept it running, in past I have made free directories but turned it paid after some submissions. I would be glad if members here can give some tips and guidance about running and managing a Free Directory. In short, I require some expert tips on establishing a good quality free directory. - Thanks.
I would plan out a way to make money from the site before going ahead....that is the biggest problem with a free directory ----> "Lots of work and no pay makes for a very, very bad day." good luck.
I would say basically the same as creating a strong paid web directory. Give users what they want, links to sites there looking for etc with quality content and you can't go wrong Best of luck!
IMHO if you want to keep it free makes sure your willing to work extra hard as you will be getting alot of spam and make it a niche of something you like alot
make sure you have the time/resources to be able to sustain a massive amount of submissions if you dont have help to review and edit submissions its gonna hurt I would do some research into how you can make money from a free directory also
I am not interested in making hell out profits from the site. I would sell some sitewides its enough for me to pay a editor and hosting and dedicated IP fees. I agree it has lot of work, but I would have good editors for the same. Thanks for your response till now guys.
One more suggestion if you want to make any money is maybe sell banner space or just a few sitewides to cover your fees
It will take a team of editors. Question is how to let them benefit and my suggestion would be to have a page with their info and main sites. It needs to be there to keep them motivated to keep on adding quality to the directory. Quality is number 1. You have to be a hardass, but a fair hardass. We all know many on DP will submit low/no quality sites and say "Hey dude, remember me, we're friends right? Hook me up!" You need to be able to say no. And editors have to also get some sites from other sources to add themselves. Maybe in time there will not be a need, but at first you need to start out listings something good. A good domain name and brand is important, too. I'm willing to donate www.DirectoriesSuck.com for the cause
i would say treat it exactly like a paid directory. Get all the mods and design you would if it was a paid, just have free submission. Hire editors - if you make it big it will be a lot of work
The DMOZ principals were originally good, get expert editors, those who know what it takes to create a quality section and have them treat their section as if it was their own niche directory.
Get ready to review hundred's of links every day. The worst thing in creating a free directories is that the submitter will send you tonz of stupid submissions. I means, they just think that since the directory is free, they can submit anything with it. Long titles, short descriptions and almost every subpage of their site. So, be sure to set some rules in start and tell everyone to follow them strictly. That way, you might be able to get some peace. Good luck with the coming project
I have had experience with free directories, currently running 1 full fledge free directory (www.ablazedirectory.com) getting around 300+ submissions each day. I never felt that Free Directories cannot make revenue, in fact you can earn more, the most important thing is you don't have to spend thousands of bucks each month for it's promotions. Cost to run a free directory is neglible and revenue is steady. Below are few tips i would like to mention here: 1- Keep comprehensive and strict submission guide lines on submit page, if someone does not follow the rules, delete links immediately, no need to edit each link manually (if those links are not obeying submission guide lines) 2- In your directory's admin, sort the links by Date, and keep on approving links (first older links and then newer links) 3- Giving 5 deep links for featured listings and 3 deep links for Express Listings (12 approval option) will brigthen your free directory and will give you quick bucks as well. 4- Try approving Free Links frequently, it takes only 15 minutes to validate (approve/delete/edit) around 50 links a day, if you are experienced directory owner and having broadband/DSL connection. 5- Give priority to reciprocal links, approve them before other Free Links, that will encourage the users to give you back links on their sites. 6- Custom design, rich content, strick editorial techniques and lot care will make your free directory an excellent resource and will turn into high traffic and hits. When you have all things, decent revenue will not be away from you
Same here, but I would like to leave here some words that somehow will be my guiding line for the next months here at DP. This applies to directories and whatever, but from what I have learned over the last year I'd like to tell you the following: (keep this in mind for our directory) Our Business is not here at DP, it's out there, everywhere, DP members are webmasters, are friends, are people like us that try their best to survive this though e-world. People, help each other the best way you can! If you don't, no one will ever do it for you. Shenron
it is very good to see sunny that you are thinking about making a free directory and have good motivation. Hope to see you beat DMOZ <won't be hard> But here it is from my experience, First: Find a way for steady revenue. Because i will tell you no matter how much you say right now you don't care, in the end there will be a day you will be like this is a waste of time. But revenue is not hard on free directories if you run it steadily. Traffic will come by itself. As asim mentioned, have express / featured submission for that though you might want to get some custom features with phpld because custom script will be a little too much. My ideas: Have a way to sort express / featured / free so you can approve express / featured first and than u can get to free ones. so on your admin panel it will show Total Links: 7896 Pending Free links: 849 Pending Express links: 54 Pending Featured Links: 30 so you can go separately and edit each link. For featured modify and edit everything like description and such. Same with express. Free if they don't follow guideline its not worth to edit.... remove the link and send a link to your TOS in the rejection email. But if you really think the site have potential it is good to edit. (Editorial discretion) Also, keep the number of sitewides limited... try more category sponsorship rather than sitewide. I am sure the traffic will be enough. Wish you good luck.
Its not easy to maintain a free directory, talking with my own experience! I would say - If you are going to have a nice branding with it, you should promote it in a way by which you promote a paid directory! - And also, as smub said, using express listing etc. would be nice. - Have a small team of paid editors if required. - When the directory is open, make sure you have some guidelines like locking top categories etc. - Have a very huge category structure to accomodate listings to a correct inner category. That's all from my side. Good luck for your project!
I had wanted to make Mishre a totally-free directory before I gave up and turn it to paid due to the huge amounts of spam and MFA, affiliate links submitted. Perhaps in the future I will start one again but not at the moment. Anyway from my experience a free directory will consume a lot of your time. You need to be really confident about being able to maintain and edit the directory listings. Enforce the same policies that a paid directory would do, minus the fee. You can perhaps get some money from sitewide links or banner sales in order to pay for hosting, editors, etc.
Get ready to get thousand's of submission daily! and when your site will achive higher PR and will be on a lot of free directory list, the submissions will be even higher! Making money won't be a problem, you will always get a few featured links, so don't worry about it! just give your free directory a dedicated time of your day, and it will sure make a huge success!