What do you look for in a good directory? (- ignoring linking building stuff!)

Hi,

I'm looking to find out what people look for in a directory - i.e. what features you like about any directories, things that make it easy to use, etc

E.g.
Related categories to the one your in?
Websites listed in A-Z Order?
Websites listed by most popular?
A search facility?
Adjustable text size / large text?
Links that do/don't open up in a new window?
...etc!

Thanks

 

... a good directory would include

an up to date image of my website
links to latest articles posts etc
links to the rss feeds
basically as detailed a profile of the site as poss so the surfer gets a really clear picture of what the site is all about

I also feel that you can really never have enough categories for its listings. I find this is the area where most directories break down for me. When I list some of my sites, the categories are just to broad - it feels like my site is getting lost in a sea of other websites that are so vaguely related, the title of the category may as well be random.

A good search method is important as well so if any one enters keywords related to my site it will show up in the results.

A list of popular websites is always good as it gives webmasters with decent content more exposure.

In fact thinking about it - it could be a good idea to have various buttons on the page
so that the surfer can select to view the sites, a-z / by popularity / category etc

I tried out directorypress for wordpress once and it did a cool thing where on the listing page for each site it contained an iframe of the site so you got a live preview of the website. I thought that was pretty nifty!

 

Thanks moneyfunctions

I really like the idea about having mulitple options on the page allowing the user to choose (between a-z, popularity, category, etc).

 

are you creating a directory? if so please keep me posted on it. I would love to see what you come up with

 

Yes I am

- and okay, I'll update you when I've got something interesting to show!

Paul

 

I wish you goodluck Paul I just hope that we woudnt see a .info silly domain and a free template or script to begin with...we see many like that in the Annoucement section everyday! You seem to have a genuine interest in building something good and it's good to see that!

 

cool, i look forward to it

 

I think good directory should have:
1. Option to search the whole directory.
2. Option to list sites by several options.

 

Quality descriptions, it's as simple as that.

 

hhmmm... considering for my new directory

 

A good search option is essential. Secondly, think really hard about categorisation, and get it right by avoiding extremes.

If you have 1000 websites listed in a single category, that's useless to everyone involved. Whereas if you have 1000 categories, each one listing just one website or none at all, that's also useless. So you need a rough idea of how many websites you'll be listing and how many listings you want per category page before you even start.

Categorisation may not be a bells-and-whistles feature, but it's the most important consideration when it comes to creating something people can use. Related categories and symbolic listings are also good to have.

 

1. Simple UI but not like regular junk around web.
2. Clean Designs
3. Validated Code
4. Directory with Nofollow outbound link.

 

Directories primarily are qualitative information hand-selected by the moderator. In what form it will be presented to the directory - doesn't matter. The main thing is the relevance and quality of the information, the appropriation of category, convenient of directory.

 

Unique design and content are plus.

 

Thanks everyone - that's been very useful.

I like SearchBuster's comment about Quality Descriptions (personally I like descriptions that are short but descriptive). I wonder if the same site should have different descriptions within different categories it appears under?

Obelia - thanks for the comments on categories - makes good sense to me, though I'm finding that it can be tricky to get right! P.S. Sorry if this is a daft question but what are "symbolic listings"?

MGwebmasters useful comments on "hand-selected by the moderator" reminded me that a directory often boils down to being one person (moderator) telling another person (the user) which sites they believe are good for that subject - a personal recommendation rather than an automated one (I had forgotten about that, being too buried in coding!)...

...returning to the descriptions with this in mind... I wonder whether it would be useful making descriptions more personal? E.g. "This site is the market leader for XYZ, though I found the site hard to use" / "One of my favourite sites, with a really good section on XYZ"? Are there directories who do descriptions in this way rather than the more formal descriptions?

Thanks for the comments on design and ease of use (will need to do some user testing at some point!)