do you think 11,000 Categories for a directory is a joke? 200-500 categories is quite enough for any niche. it seems that the owner is very happy and pride for this. but it can sometimes be hard to find the info you're looking for in such a big list directory. absolutely it's not user family and useful.
I never like to search anything on DMOZ. The main reason is only category. I think they are just trying to put the entire thing they usually seen outside the company. Anything that looks can be a category. If it possible, they make sub-category of a mouse like (a) Scroller (b) Left Button (c) Right Button (d) Cover (e) ball (f) Optical beam (g) Mouse Wire etc. We don't need 11,000 categories in any directory. Just 300 - 500 is best.
For some niches....maybe. Depends on this niche. Certain niches really need alot of categories to effectively categorize their listings into something useful for their visitors. An example would be real estate directories. These directories have to have thousands of categories so that they have specific location sub-categories. No one wants to visit a real estate directory in search of "apartment rentals in Sacramento, California" but be forced to view 1,800 listings in one big "Apartments For Rent" category that is not sub-divided into location. THAT is not user-friendly. How could a very large directory like DMOZ be useful to anyone if it was just 300-500 categories? As of today DMOZ has 4,607,457 sites listed. That comes out to around 20,000 listing per category is you limit it to 500 cats. That is absolutely ridiculous. Why would anyone want to list there site in a directory where no one would ever find it? Now I do agree that some directories have WAY too many categories compared to listings and that they hurt themselves doing this. But it is far, FAR more common for a directory to have too few categories compared to sites listed. Take the following example: http://www.addurl-free.com/ (115 cats, 52,431 listings! ) Why would you want to be listed on page 54 of the "Health" category (along with 1,800 other listings)? You think that is useful for the submitted site? Or a potential directory searcher? [By the way no offense to the directory owner, not sure who owns that directory, but it is having some SERIOUS pagination errors]
Interesting topic. I think this is aimed more at general directories. DirJournal has 11,000 categories. The problem comes when these categories are left empty. DirJournal and Hasan are doing an excellent job of filling them all, so in 2 years time I reckon he will have a huge directory full of listings which is excellent. My Zorg Directory had 1500 categories which is a reasonable amount. Most directories have 400-2000 categories. I hired editors to fill up my categories too but it was a long and expensive job. The best method may to be add 400 categories and just expand when you need to. That saves pages falling into the supplemental index and given the PR n/a page due to being empty. BTW - I think Sharat owns a general directory with 18,000+ categories. I forgot the URL though!
This thread is absolutely ridiculous to say the least. My advice to OP and those who feel the same way; get off your jealousy trip and hire editors to add content and categories like dirjournal has done, or stfu.
everyquery, its better than nothing. you have listed your point seriously, though I don't agree the two examples.
I have over 850 in one directory, its ok if you can find your way around your own directory and if you have planned the category structure so that users have an easy time of it too. I would never plant too many categories into a brand new directory but id love to see some directories around 5 years from now and possibly the baby dirs may grow into something like that, with large category numbers and organised well. Slow and steady.
There are over 10,000 topics in DigitalPoint's Directories fora. So over 10,000 separate subjects that Directory owners want to talk about. That seems a good model for the number of topics that Directory Owners may need to categorize.
"11,000 Categories? " I can't believe it, maybe most of categories will be blank. I think 50-500 categories is enough for a niche or general directory.
I will have one less catagory than i need just before i add a new one and at that point it will be correct again.