Should a new directory be pre populated?

Hi All,

Just setting up a new general directory which is still being customised. My question is, should it be pre-populated with links or left empty?

If it's empty, would you (as a potential listing) just dissappear, or would you list?

Cheers

Nubai

 

Leave it empty, or at least submit your own sites only.
Why populate it?

Open a free submission for 2 days and you'll see how easy you populate it.

 

Left empty - if you promote correctly then you can quite easily get 25-100 submission each day, which obviously means it wouldnt take long for your directory to become populated. Of course this is based on the principle that your directory allows free submissions... if your expecting paid regular submissions you might as well give up now because getting paid submissions to a brand new or unpopulated directory will be very, very difficult!!!

 

Thanks for the reply!

I thought of the free submission for a week or so but really don't want it full of spam.

Looking around these forums, it's suggested at least $1 (or a £1 in my case) should be charged for any links to avoid spam. But would you still list if it was £1 AND empty?

Just thinking aloud...

 

Just because your expecting people to pay to submit a link doesnt mean your not going to recieve spam. Spammers will still submit their link, they just wont bother in completing the submission process and paying you the money.

The best idea is to have free links for a good couple of months, get your site known, build up a list of quality links, get a PR ranking and then consider changing the paid submissions. Of course during this time you can still offer sponsored listings for a fee to people who want to purchase links...

 

No way.

I disagree with the posters who say it should be left empty. I think you need to pre-populate it. Not only does that set the tone, it shows potential submitters that you are serious about your directory. Some submitters won't bother if your directory looks cookie-cutter, or as though you aren't adding sites. And these will be the ones you most want to attract to your directory.

It also helps submitters figure out which categories would be most appropriate for their sites. There are different interpretations about what should be in "World", for instance: foreign language sites, or regional ones in English? This is actually true for various different categories.

 

Yep, that's kinda what I thought.
I'm not in this for "get rich quick" reasons. Just felt like launching a site (like you do ) and figured this would be fun.

What i'm aiming to create is a site with high-quality links only not just any old links, there's too many of those already. The idea being that a listing becomes a sort of privilege. Is that feasible or am I setting my sights too high?

 

I also think it's a good idea to populate it to a certain degree. But I wouldn't leave the directory completely open, but rather I would hand pick quality sites or non-profit web sites, and submit them on my own.

 

That's what i thought initially but as others have said, if i leave it free for a while, then everyone else can populate it for me. Lazy i know but whats the difference between me accepting a link from an advertiser and searching for the links myself?

I guess if it's free, people would list anyway, empty or not.

 

At the end of the day its really up to you... of course add some of your favourite sites if you feel like it - but if you change to free regular submissions, get listed at http://info.vilesilencer.com and directory critic, by the end of the weekend you should have links flooding through your directory door! Anyways your directory has over 80 links already hasnt it? Thats hardly empty...

 

Thanks for all the replies. It looks like it really is 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other.

Off to checkout Vilesilencer et al.

 

They were done by hand.

 

But why do you pre-populate it and waste time.
Just announce your directory in solicitation/announcement section in different forums and you will see a lot of submission.
Just work for those submission and approve genuine ones only and reject spams.

If you want to start paid one, then you must first try to promote it very well, for new one IMO no one will come for even 1 pound.

 

I agree with those who said to pre-populate it. You should make your directory help people, or at least look like it is there to help people besides webmasters. I think pre-population would be really important for niche directory's that would actually get used, such as a PHP resource directory.

 

I would agree up to a point about pre-populating.

My biggest gripe is the sites that take my listing from one of their existing sites and do it badly. I tend to write several sentences for my descriptions (I always count my characters and stay within guidelines - at least when they are stated) and it drives me up the wall to visit a new directory, find they already have me listed (not a bad thing), but have my description cut off mid sentence and look crappy for it. While it doesn't really effect SEO, it does make it look like I'm a spammer or something. This is particularly aggrevating when it is done with my writing site - oh gee look she can't even enter a description properly and she thinks someone is going to hire her to write web
content - yeah right.

So, please for the site owner's sake and your own credibility; if you populate from another site or database, please ensure you don't foul up the listings in the process.

 

leave it empty. let it grow on its own. if you would like to add any authoritive sites then feel free to do so.

 

yeap, just leave it empty, and announce your directory in solicitation/announcement section, you will getting tire just for review the site or spam.

 

My opinion is populate it for two reasons

1. For the people that may land on your directory
2. For webmasters, adding authority sites not only has the benefits that Obelia mentioned but also provides good co citation for the sites submitted

 

Once again - thanks for the replies.

I had already populated the "arts" category before i posted but decided to announce the site as free listings. That way as YMC says, you get to put what you want in the description, META, etc fields without my bad interpretation.

As it happens, at this rate, i'll be pulling 100 subs a day (i know it's the initial surge). Everyones a winner. My dir is populated for me, you get what you want, and it free. Admittedly i had to weed out half a dozen dodgy sites but hey.

 

The difference between sites you add yourself and the ones that submit is huge, in terms of the types of sites that you get. For example, you won't get any listings of huge authority sites like NASA, the BBC, or any government sites through your submission forms. Granted, sites like these don't actually need a listing in your directory, but it's good to include them for the benefit of your users. You will also get few charity or non-profit sites bothering to submit.

Basically you will get a predominance of business sites, as well as spammy submissions such as MFA. So you'll end up with a directory with quite biased content unless you add a few listings yourself in order to balance it out.