I hope I can make this clear. I started a free general directory with no backlink required as an experiment which is enough said. I do take a quick look at submissions and throw away what I am sure are pure junk. I am quite surprised at what is happening because it is making more from Adsense than some of my mini-sites so I have decided I should attempt to do a better job of reviewing and start cleaning it up, so to speak. With financial considerations set aside what makes a good and/or successful directory. Where can one find good information on how to quickly identify junk submissions (I have identified a few that get dumped as soon as I see the URL). I am not real good at picking out some of the (I will call them) portal type stuff. Is it just a matter of learning as you go? I am not looking for forum links so I will just say PUXX. I am also slowly starting another directory and want to do it better from the start. I threw away all but 4 of 26 submissions today. P.S. I am getting so sick of spammy/keyword stuffed titles and descriptions I am about to start dumping without even looking. India sites seem the worst. There is a company (India) that must own a domain for every tiny product they manufacture. Think this weekend might be a good time to dump them all.
What Mike says. It's no good relying on submissions to populate your categories, do it yourself and make the high quality sites you add yourself your standard for submissions. This works for me, I've been pleased to see submissions to my blog directory have nearly all been accepted because the submitter sees the sites already listed and are pleased to be listed amongst them. Crap sites will realise they haven't got a chance and won't submit.
One where the owner/editor takes time over the submissions, many junk submissions are obvious, some require a closer look, but the quality overall is down to you. I personally see nothing wrong with keyword titles, rather pointless getting thousands of links with just your domain in the title so i believe a directory owner should allow for some keywords in titles. Regarding success with a directory, i dunno, ive certainly not exprienced it with any of mine, not really a point with a directory though. Directories are more of a slow and steady thing, not worth trying to figure out which route you should take with one, just let it go with the flow and keep it tidy. Anybody interested in a directory backlink dont give a damn for most of the other features available on it, they dont wanna read its blog, they dont care about most things you could waste your time on with it, pure and simple its the backlink mostly, pr too for some and if you allow for deeplinks.
I agree with this up to a point. If you create a good and strong niche directory why does it need the bells and whistles? Probably a general directory does need some more content to make it stand out from the crowd. Authority Directory does a great job with it's regularly updated and informative blog.
Ok but who is the directory user. Is it the entity submitting a resource looking for 'link juice' or is it the surfer looking for information, goods or services. IMHO the ideal would be striking that medium where both are served but it would seem that is about as easy as hand reg'ing a good type in traffic .com in 2008. I got no problem with using keywords but the stuffing like is to much. I used to look at the site and if it looked worth while I would rewrite but I don't like spending the time doing it for free listings. I ain't going to approve like that because it then reflects badly on me so bye bye and don't let the door hit you in the a$$ on the way out. I am slowly learning how to speed things a bit - URL's containing 'phile' get automatic delete - if it has insurance and is a long name it is likely crap so dump it. Drugs and gambling are hard to decide on. Niche are easy and my Ceramic Arts Index resources are all hand picked by yours truly. As strange as it sounds I am getting 100-150 submissions/day and currently dumping about 40-60%. Having problems finding the time to go through the over 3,000 entries separating the chaff and expanding the categories where needed. Please the SE's type content is a whole topic in itself. I am experimenting with rotating descriptive and clickable ads on the entry page and it is interesting to watch the Adsense ads change when I rotate a new one in. Sorry for going on this much but... Thanks so much for the comments. Helps my thought process on what to do. While I am new at this traveling a slightly different path is my forte. Am starting to get a feel for things.
You're quite right there, but only to a certain extent. When running Zorg Directory I used to allow keyword AND site name. So for example This is not spammy, yet doesn't help the submitter and makes little sense to the end user. This helps the submitter with the keyword AND helps the end user understand more about the site