One issue when listing sites in a directory can be where to place them. I was looking for your opinions on the following scenario 1 Neatness of easier finding? Someone submits a music forum into the music category, which is in entertainment. Do you leave it there, or move it to the entertainment category, inside your forum category (which may be 1 level deeper than where they originally submitted it) 2 All in one or one in all? Similar situation, someone submits niche directories like a travel directory into travel. Do you move it to niche directories, or leave it in travel? 3 Sales related or information related? This time information conflicts with sales related sites. For example someone may submit a hotel company into hotels, which is located in travel. Was that category for hotel information only? Should you move the hotel site into travel, which is inside shopping? I look forward to hearing what you think. It seems we need to discuss something useful around here at the moment, so much bitching and unfriendliness. I want to know what you would do if it was your directory and the same happened for each 3 situations Mike
hi mikey, i do like this... 1) i leave it in music category (for now) 2) I dont put this into travel, its a directory so its under directories 3) I had similar problem with travel category so i opened new like Agency & Travel Portals where all related goes here. This is how i do. I would also like to hear opinion on others here...
So why not move a forum into forums category, but move a directory into directories category? Seems a little strange Thanks for your opinion
It it really strange. I have a forum subcategories like computer forums, webmaster forums etc... but not a music forum because its not Computer&Internet Category, it belongs to Entertainment - you are right. So maybe time to open Forums in Entertainment Category Really interesting topic here.
1) Yes move it to the forums category. However the Forums/Entertainment category could easily be linked back as Music/Forums allowing the visitor to see the entertainment forums list from either path. 2) Yes move it, it's a directory and if you have a niche travel directory category then that is the most appropriate place for it. 3) If you've designated Travel/Hotels as informational sites only and Shopping/Travel as holding hotel companies then you move it. Again as in 1 cross linking categories may also prove valuable e.g. You link Travel/Hotels/Hotel Companies to Shopping/Travel You'd probably also want to break the Shopping/Travel category down to smaller units.
Yes cross linking categories is helpful is such cases. I am not sure if this feature is implemented in phpld. It is available in esyndicat.
- I do move the travel directories to Niche directories section. - As hotels are a part of travel, i would not move it into shopping. - I wont leave the music forum in the entertainment/music, but would move it into forums/entertainment!
Someone submits a music forum into the music category, which is in entertainment. Do you leave it there, or move it to the entertainment category, inside your forum category (which may be 1 level deeper than where they originally submitted it) you could ghost it by doing this > MUSIC > FORUMS > MYMUSICFORUM > FORUMS > MUSIC > MYMUSICFORUM Similar situation, someone submits niche directories like a travel directory into travel. Do you move it to niche directories, or leave it in travel? > DIRECTORIES > TRAVEL > MYTRAVELDIR > TRAVEL > DIRECTORIES > MYTRAVELDIR This time information conflicts with sales related sites. For example someone may submit a hotel company into hotels, which is located in travel. Was that category for hotel information only? Should you move the hotel site into travel, which is inside shopping? TRAVEL INSIDE OF SHOPPING ? I look forward to hearing what you think. It seems we need to discuss something useful around here at the moment, so much bitching and unfriendliness. I want to know what you would do if it was your directory and the same happened for each 3 situations Mike[/QUOTE]
So far the best reply and that's exactly what I will be doing. I will like to add 2) If you have a "Directory" as top category than most likely you will have Travel Directory or niche directory as sub. So, its a better practice if you keep all directories in one place. (It depends on your habit as well. You should treat all dir the same way)
Ok, so we are agreed we keep all forums and directories togethor, with symbolic categories linking from the main niche categories. But what about the conflict between sales/information another example would be games. do you place playstation or Xbox in games/entertainment, or under toys and games in shopping?
Mike, we just review the link correctly! If it provides information and downloads related to Xbox etc. then it goes into games normal section. And if it is selling things out in the site, then it should be listed in shopping/games or toys!
If the listing is for the games promo site e.g. http://www.enemyterritory.com/ then it goes in games/entertainment however if it's a store selling games then they go in shopping.
I don't agree with necessarily keeping all niche directories together. If you think about how a niche directory functions and remember that submitters to niche directories don't typically hang around directory forums; it makes more sense to put it in the topic category. For example, with my craft directory, 95% (a guess, it's probably higher) of my submitters come from searches for the topic of their own site. Searches for things like "macrame patterns" might lead to a submission in that category. I've seen others looking for "advertising for ____ sites". Again, not looking for "craft directory" or "niche directory". I don't even bother submitting my niche directories when the directory owner forces me to join a multi-page laundry list "Niche Directory" category. Those lists have mainly brought only spammy submissions and offer me no SEO benefits for the keywords that actually bring me visitors and submitters. I might submit if they have Niche Directories > Topic though. If I were to open a general directory, one of the big categories everyone uses - shopping - would be removed from my category list. It's just too vague and general and leads to these sorts of problems. Think about if you were searching for a site about digital cameras. If you didn't own a directory would you look in "Shopping" or "Technology" or "Electronics"? Be honest, you know you wouldn't start in shopping. I think grouping sites by type is not all that helpful to submitters or visitors, at least not at the top level. It is much more logical to have Entertainment > Music > Forums then Forums > Music. What is more important - that the site is about music or that it is a forum? Hotels & Shopping???? Are they selling the hotel? That just doesn't make sense to me.
I think the issue here is that you can classify websites by more than just their topic, and that leads to confusion. There's the type of website such as forum or ecommerce, the topic and subtopic, and the specific location, which I know hasn't been mentioned but it's been a source of confusion for people who have submitted to my directories over time. Most listings could happily sit in more than one category, for most directory structures. This is either because they bridge two or more topics, or because you've structured your taxonomy so that it takes account of site type as well as topic and location. If you're accepting paid listings, one approach could be to leave them where they fall, providing it's in a reasonable category, and assume that your submitters know best what market they want to advertise to. Or you could offer multiple categories. Remember, what you think of as the best category for a website is not necessarily the same thing as your directory searchers. If you want to cover all your bases and provide a good experience for visitors and potential submitters, find a way to offer multiple categories. This has been my solution to the situation of listings belonging in more than one category: http://www.stiffupperlist.co.uk/Regional/England/Devon/ In the Regional category, I have "Additional local results". These are listings that appear in other categories, but which would also happily fit here as well. This only appears in the Regional category, which I usually reserve for websites which are about specific places, or very local in their appeal. I don't classify websites according to type, but it would be easy to take the same approach and offer additional listings to all the forums that aren't listed under a specific forum category, all the blogs that aren't listed under Blogs, and so on.
Depends on the primary focus/purpose of the site in question. Is the site's primary goal to sell a product/service and target consumers? If a site's primary goal is my wallet - Shopping/Services Does the site provide information, reviews, cheats, codes or instructions? Offer tips on how to become a better player? - Games There may be exceptions to any ideas and you should consider your goal in trying to provide a useful resource. Symbolic links can help to interconnect related topics or categories.
Yeah i was thinking the same Thanks guys for your opinions, think I got the answers i was looking for