Can i see one of your successfull websites please? Im personally always struggling with nearly all of mine, the day i may leave forums may be when im not struggling anymore and can no longer see a reason to be on forums.
No I wouldn't ever show my sites to webmasters, it's just my golden rule. Seeing them won't help you, as only a small amount of my knowledge is contained within the sites. The sites won't show how much I earn nor the traffic generated, so it's pointless you seeing them. Any new plans I have I keep in my head and never, ever divulge on forums, blogs or in articles. I can say that one of my sites got exposure to 8.5 million, and that destroys any link building achievements I could have ever worked on, but still to this day I feel I just got lucky, - was in the right place at the right time, so you can get a lucky break, but it's very rare though. I could help out a fair bit with general business stuff, but do tend to dislike the SEO stuff, as my promotion knowledge just gets better results. The web hangs onto SEO and SERPS way too much, like it's the best thing ever - but it's so not, really, it's not. I'm basically an ideas person and occassionally my ideas pay off, but not all of them, and failure will happen more anyway.
I wasn't looking for help, just curiosity made me ask, dont want to know how much you earn either, nor your traffic. Serps, seo, traffic, content, ppc, that is internet marketing after all, it all makes many work quite hard. I think were all ideas people. Do you struggle with seo or something? had a bad experience in the past? You understand that this is all meant to be a challenge, thats why the search engines update and keep mixing things up, were not meant to get it all 100%. Impossible for everyone to have top position, instead seo encourages people to improve their sites by practising some of the methods believed to help promote a site. The result is millions of sites that are better kept.
Really, you're not struggling then: I wasn't looking for help, just curiosity made me ask Curiosity, ahhhh I understand completely Have to disagree there, with so many copying the directory model, and even if just one webmaster had a great idea, I don't see them on directories or believe they have the cash to develop it or market it effectively to even the webmaster community. Nope, never had trouble because I mostly ignore it. But it's simply a battle that cannot be won, and it's a very clever ploy to make people buy advertising. Quite genius actually. Exactly right: and that's why you will lose everytime - too many guys like you all fighting for it, how can you win Do you mean the hundreds of adsense sites and dead directories? Junk sites make up the majority of the web, difficult to count all those hehe
I think i know what it is that you do as a marketing method, is it that you: Pluck out a similar service offering company and then put out lots of information on that company to those you feel will read it, like a smear campaign against the company, then you subtly appear as a saviour, like you can rescue them from the other company that they first chose. It doesn't cost you a penny but just some time, you do this through a variety of different ways and try and father them into believing the other company is evil and that you are looking out for them and can offer the same for less? Am i close at all?
It's that dumb 'know it all' webmaster talk again lol. It's a disease and it spreads, just like those bloody directories hehe. And no, you have no idea what we do.
Would you agree that sticking with something even though its not doing that well (my directory for example) <- honesty, is a good sign though? That many directory owners stick with it, loyalty, knowing that their directories will age in time and gain more and more trust, they may not be the trendy new marketing method but they are still there. Working away, regularly editing because they want to. I think thats positive.
No, it's financial suicide to keep hold of something that makes bugger all profit. Not unless it's a unique idea and your in media launch stage of things. Blockbuster Video shut down a ton of their stores due to non performance, obviously wasn't making much money or hitting the targets, so they shut down. Don't forget they pay bills like staff costs, lighting, heat, new stock, insurance etc - so if people aren't hiring videos the cash isn't being made, and their actually losing money to keep the store open. In most cases it's the right thing to do - just quit before more time and money is wasted working a dead horse. With webmaster directories it's a time thing that's at stake and being wasted. With proper companies it's the profit they must save, as they must answer to shareholders, the board of directors and Founder - pressure to make big profits you see. Web businesses are no different, if it's wasting time and making hardly anything, then I'd shut one of mine down in a second, because it would save me much hassle, stress, time and cash. Can always replace it with something else, but I'd never do another directory again that's for sure, it's just too much hassle.
I didn't suggest that myself or others are not making any profit, merely that myself and others have held onto directories. Dvd's can be purchased cheaply online and for the non payers its simply easy to download a pirate copy, no suprise that a dvd store would downsize. Since you wont be doing another directory again, do yourself a favour and forget all about the one that you used to own. Didn't you very recently say that you own one where you approve everything? just leaving it running and dont check anything?
To bring everything back on topic These "auto directories", I would not create one, not even for curiosity/research. But if someone did they would need a lot of programming above the normal directory as most directory scripts assume you will do the moderating. Approving everything would be a security risk as it could be open to SQL injections etc. You could program the directory to remove obvious spam or nonsensical submissions. Even then I would think the directory would eventually be de-indexed. For the term "auto directories" or auto approve directory I mean that to be a directory that once set up is never touched by a human. That was my initial question. Once spammers realise a directory is auto approve it would be flooded with many autobot submissions daily. Eventually it would become too much for the serrver and it would crash.
Guess I should get rid of my dog But seriously — most of us run servers anyway, so to run a directory means literally no overhead. Okay, you might want to shell out for a directory script, or have one made, comission a template, et al. However, at the end of the day, overhead is so low, any revenue generated is profit really. For my directory, I put in and get out in equal amounts. I merely try to pin a price on my time — let's say I think my time is worth $20.00/hour. If I make $100 dollars in a week, I'll be certain to put 5 hours into my directory. On top of that, I think it's fun; it's like getting paid to do a hobby. I would certainly love to put more time and money into running it and see even greater returns — however, I have other projects and jobs that need love to. I just hope people see the care and attention to detail I put into my sites.
SQL injection attacks occur in real time, not based on an admin approval or denial action. If the programming is weak it will be susceptible to injection, if it is strong then it will not.... auto approve has nothing to do with it. It is possible to create an auto approve directory that is clean and untouched, you just need to have the programming skills available to achieve it. Most of us know what the obvious problems would be... none of them are that complicated that some decent programming couldn't be developed. LoL... I would almost add the wife to that list too but she reads these forums so better be careful
@ SilkySmooth At last, somebody understands how it's done. @ pipes that was my main point actually - the wasting of time hehe Actually I own 2 medium sized businesses, and I was referring to the unsuccessful ones should be dumped, not ours. Yup, both mine are automated, but even with that I have other things on those sites that (at the moment) need constant maintenance, and also still have clients who renewed listings, so can't shut it down yet, they have legally paid me, so I have to provide the service. I suppose I could just shut down, but it's going to look bad on me when I start the next project - not a wise move in our position. Also with the amount of users we get, it would be like turning away millions a year, and we aren't about to do that. It's fine for a webmaster directory to shut down and forget, chances are there won't be any comeback, but there will for us!
A true idea's person in some ways is not frightened to put up their idea's in that as mentioned this is a rare trait. In most cases when you roll out an idea the depth, purpose, final end products will not be seen or understood by the average person. Even if they were to copy it, ( an idea or what they thought was the idea ) in most most cases they would bugger it by not understanding the full concept. Idea's in them selves are extensions of other idea's / thoughts / the things around us that are gathered in life's journey in the minds eye, they are there for every one but few harness the full potential. But i can also understand why you do not post your sites, as i do not post mine, this is probably due to the site not being my intended market so no point.
To whomever sent me a rep from this thread, you didn't leave a name.... but yeah I would agree with your statement
Well I got to say it - if you link to anything then you've got to accept the consequences that come from that. The ones that suffer from spam bring it on themselves due to the activities they indulge in eg: mass link swapping. It's true hehehe