Quality of directories

Hello I would like to write some online tool for counting some value of directories.
What do you think are important parameters of quality for directories.
I made similar tool for pages where I am giving to webs value from 0 to 100 000, that help me to see quality of sites. You can find it here :
http://www.websitepromotion4you.com/show_page_info.php

I know other parameters important for directories
Number of categories
Number of sites submitted
Number of outgoing links on pages
Dofollow or Nofollow links
SEO friendly URLs

If you know some other parameters specific for directories please write them here. Especially parameters that can be readable from directory pages. I am not sure if I am able to atomatically gain all parameters from dirs, but I hope that basic engine for dirs is similar especially for phpld directories.

 

I am not sure you can tell from a page, but for me on a personal level moving forward i will be looking at Views as a factor in a site where i wish to advertise.

Views to me are people power votes and a consistant / increase view rate covers most other paramaters.

 

Nice tool.

Some comments are:

Way too much weight given to PageRank.
Pagerank counts for more than all the other 11 factors combined.
Internal page Pagerank would also be important.

As mentioned traffic / SE rankings should be important considerations

The total number of backlinks can often be a misleading number, especially if you have 5000 links on from one sitewide footer link.

 

What I look for...

#1 Tight adherence to category structure. One example that drives me batty - under Crafts or Art Directories (I have a craft directory) people accept a general directory that does not even bother to mention it has a crafts area and usually only has one sub-category for crafts.

#2 I do a search for the word breast. If they accept all those phony lotions and potions sites - they'll accept anything. (This eliminates a huge percentage of directories.)

#3 Listings on the page - if the categories are not paginated - not worth much.

#4 If using a free or purchase template, did the owner take the time to fill in the TOS or does it say something like "put your policies here"? Same goes for advertising slots, about us, and any other standard spots text would normally appear.

#5 If they say PR and new in the same breath - I don't even bother looking at it.

 

Here are parameters that I am able to search for pages from PHP script.

Backlinks from Google Yahoo MSN AllTheWeb Altavista
Indexed Pages on Google Yahoo MSN AllTheWeb Altavista
Title position in search engines
Domain Age
DMOZ Listings
Yahoo Directory Listings
Technorati Listings
Del.ico.us Listings
Gov Backlinks
Edu Backlinks
Alexa traffic rank

Here are parameters from my previous post
-------------------
Number of categories
Number of sites submitted
Number of outgoing links on pages
Dofollow or Nofollow links
SEO friendly URLs

Here are your recomendations
------------------------------
Views to me are people power votes and a consistant / increase view rate covers most other parameters. (I don't really know which views do you mean from Alexa?)
Tight adherence to category structure. (Yes it is important factor, but I don't know hot it is possible to create script for this )
I do a search for the word breast. (Good idea .. )
Listings on the page = Number of outgoing links on pages
If using a free or purchase template, did the owner take the time to fill in the TOS or does it say something like "put your policies here"? Same goes for advertising slots, about us, and any other standard spots text would normally appear. (Also a good idea, but it is difficult to automatize this in program)
If they say PR and new in the same breath (Yes this possible find from combination page rank and domain age parameter above)
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Above I wrote all parameters. It will help me a lot if you can choose from
5 to 10 parameters in order of importance. If you have some other ideas write them please here. Thanx

 

Apart from whats important are you looking for features to add to the script ?

 

I want to make new tool where I choose some features from my tool above and I add some features from list above. This tool I want to use for my list of directories.

 

Ok well at the moment I don't have any of the new ideas(functions) but if any of these are interesting please feel free to PM me an email address, in turn I will send you a script I was working on.

Grab

• Title
• Keywords
• Description
• Creation date
• Expire Date

Validators

• CSS
• HTML

 

Interesting concept but not sure of the accuracy at this point. I plugged in my blog directory and most of the Google information your current tool pulls in is incorrect. (didn't check the rest of the information returned)

PR actual 5, your tool shows 4
backlinks actual 2180, your tool shows 434
indexed pages actual 1250, your tool 181

So I guess for me, the directory version of any tool you might come up with should at least use accurate information in the final calculations

 

I think the stats are pulled from cache source, click the regenerate link or just try again..

 

Press button Regenerate WebSite Force on bottom of side. Stats are generated only on demand. Otherwise tool shows you only last generated stats. When you know then something changed regenerate stats with button

 

I add also new functionality now. You can add also widget with info on your site if you want.

 

I think you could search for those without an updated TOS - since the text is a "pure install" it would be consistent.

The trouble with programatically searching for a word to find spammers is the word I use could potentially eliminate a directory because it has a link to a cancer center, post-surgery items, and surgeons themselves - I will submit to a directory that has those types of listings - it's the ones with the lotions and potions that I avoid.

I guess if you searched for phrases that included enlargement pills etc it might be a truer test. Of course, that doesn't allow for the sites where the search function doesn't work at all - which might be good for another test. Search for some word like 'directory', 'website', or other word that would be commonly found even if the directory were fairly new - if it yielded no results - search broken. (Keep in mind I don't have a clue how one would program such a thing.)

I know you are looking for an automated solution, but there are so many factors that impact how I define a directory's quality that are visual - is it the same template that 5 million others use, is it hard to find the listings from all the other extraneous crap on the page, do they break Google's Adsense TOS by using pictures next to their ads, etc.

Validation might be a good one to add, but do all of the scripts out there provide default templates that validate? I have yet to find a CMS-type system where the template I chose to base my site on fully validated.

In many ways a DMOZ listing is a totally unfair rating factor. It's become almost impossible to get a listing regardless of the quality of your site - not having one doesn't mean anything IMHO. Many of the sites that do were accepted when something else was on the domain anyway.

Along with views could you perhaps grab something like the number of hits sent to the top 10 sites? Assuming of course they have a top hits type of page. Again the name of this page is fairly standard and so are the fields from script to script i.e. phpLD calls the field xxxx and the page yyyy and eSyndicat calls them xyxyx and yeyeye.

 

Yes it looks like impossible to do some program to select good directories from all directories. When I am reading your post I am little bit pessimistic about this. When I look on directory personally, usually I see in short time, if it is good or not. I am not sure if is is possible to write some easy clever script that do it in similar way. There are so many factors that could be important. Now I have a big hesitation if I want to try it or not. Thank you all for your posts.

 

Maybe its not to select a good directory, but to give as much information as possible about a directory and let the end user decide ?

Does this directory have a blog or Forum ( search navigation function ) whats the pr of the Blog / Forum, same for does this directory except comments/reviews etc... etc..

You could still award points and give an overall rating from your site.

 

interesting tool. Is this the final version ? or should we expect more ?

PS: a seo and general score value between 2 or more directories would be interesting. Something like the seo challenge from linkvendor.com adapted for directories.

 

No this tool (Website force checker) is still alive and still in progress.

 

nice tool, thanks for the accessment it gives.