My experience with my own web directory

Hi,

I passed the first stage (set by me) of an experiment. In December 2005 I decided to start a free nieche web directory to check how it will perform during time with almost no efforts from my side. I decided to start a business web directory (the last link from my signature) and it was up and running on Dec 7th.

I submitted it to several directories and requested for reviews in few forums. To be frank I didn't expected too much traffic and submissions.

Here are the results after 3 months:
- 300+ submitted sites
- ~ 100 rejected sites as they were off the topic
- ~ 150 spammy submissions, removed immediately
- ~ 15 minutes of work / day, reviewing the submitted websites and approving the good ones
- ~ 250 MB of traffic (yes, during all three months )
- ~ 1000 uniques ( same as above, excluing all returning visitors in this interval )
- less than the domain registration price income via AdSense

Beside the daily quarter of hour dedicated to site approval, I spent a day before launching customizing the script (Link Management Assistant) combining it with newsheadlines from Y! News and creating a RSS feed for the latest submitted websites and more.

I hope this is usefull for the reader willing to start a directory but unsure of time availability in the future.

 

i don't knwo why people make directories. they're useless

 

You may put it that way too. My personal reason behind is that I'm planning on a long term to develop a network of business related websites and the directory I was writting about above will be a component of it.

 

This is normal with directories

 

Unless your going to accept paid submissions dont bother id say. Most traffic you will get is traffic that has adsense blockers. :/

 

I disagree that directories are useless. I think that local directories can get quite a bit of traffic, especially if they have actual useful information in them. I get look up phone numbers and addresses all the time on the local directories here. Easier than the phone book. I have to agree on the adsense comment though. Don't look to get rich off of a directory.

 

really?

there are a lot of people make directories

 

just because a lot of people make them doesn't make them useful probably even less so.

 

I think it's possible to make a directory that can earn income, but to do so, you'll first need to build it up to make it worth people paying for. After a year, the directory I started had over 4,500 entries. It was taking me about 30 - 45 minutes a day to go through all the subs, 90% of which I disapproved. It said in big bol re letter no porn, not hate, no gambling, etc, and still that was the majority of subs I got.

After a yeaar, it was making $2-$3 a month through AdSense.

Home page was PR5 and internals were 3s and 4s. I was to the point where I could have probably started selling links from the home page (PR5) but I didn't have the time and was tired of reviewing subs every day. If you can get a directory to PR5 or 6, I bet you could sell prime links that appeared at the top of the categories.

I was working 3+hours a week, or 12-15 a month, to make $2 - 3. Not a good hourly rate. I probably could have sold home page links (or sold placement of you link after it was approved) for $20 month. Do that for 15 links, and that's another $300 a month. I might have been able to put in a Hot links feature for paid submissions, but that would have been a few 10s of hours of development work. Once I ran the numbers on POTENTIAL income versus how much I make as a freelance developer ($65 an hour), I decided to not put in the development of a home page link selling system or a Hot Links system, put the site up for auction, and got $500.

It was a good experience, however, and I learned a lot. Enough, I think, to build a directory that actually returns some income. So I started another, this time a targeted one (last one was open to anything). www.freearticlehq.com/directory.

My main take-away: general directories are useless. Only visitors I got was webmasters looking to get inbound links. But if you have a directory that's about nothing but widgets, then not only will you get people looking to advertise their widgets, you will alse get people looking for widgets. And it's the people looking for widgets that make you money.

 

Make it a resource not just a list of site that seo's are trying to promote.. simple as that..

 

You are using directory script from
http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/

I have got one directory banned by Google using this script reason rotating ads at below or spamming URL it makes by using mod-rewrite

 

mergi - who is using that script? That's not the one I'm using... I did buy one and modified it for look and function though - faster than doing one from scratch. And the only ads I'm showing are AdSense.

 

The internet has so many directories and you should not expect much traffic for your directory unless you have a really unique directory that offers something that not many others offer, like a shopping directory with the latest deals, etc.

I personally feel that phpLinkDirectory is the best directory script. It usually ranks very well with Google and there are many mods for it to cstomize it to your needs.

 

Yes, I use the directory from http://www.onlinemarketingtoday.com/ I choose it after a bit of research mostly because it could import pieces of DMOZ I was interested in (just the categories, copying the links seems to be silly).

It doesn't use mod_rewrite, it forces Apache to treat the main script file as PHP and the rest of the URL is passed as a querystring. Indeed that can be used in the spammy way, but it's not a problem on my end.

The links in the bottom are rotating indeed and I admit I was tempted to remove them once, but "let's pay caesar what belongs to caesar".

I don't have a problem with it in Google at the moment.

iShopHQ:

Thanks for sharing your experience. Probably selling links or permium litstins is the best thing to do when the directory will become a resource in the wide definition of it: quality and quantity of outgoing links.

 

This whole web thing gives the impression of the easy life, but that's what the media does, it makes the impossible seem possible for the average bloke next door, and it's such bullshit, it really is, yet so many are taken in by it all.

Ofcourse, there are success stories eg: Youtube, Cheapflights etc, but these are exceptional ideas - exceptional, and is the only reason the owners are millionaires - you ain't going to replicate that success with a directory, as it's just harder, not unique or attention grabbing enough for journalists to write about. But that's not the thing that will make you rich anyway, the site idea has to have such popularity and be so fresh in concept to get the constant users to it. Find that idea and the low-cost way to drive traffic to it, and you may, may get to fame and fortune - but it's not easy.

One example of a truly successful young entrepreneur is here in the UK. Us Brits don't see many web success stories, and there have only been a few in the past 5 years or so, although the first real entrepreneur who inspired me was Dominic McVey (Scooter Importer - worth 7 million, Sunday Times Rich List). I mean forget Alex Tew, this above guy is it, and is what you guys should be trying to emulate.


Few UK entrepreneurs have 'made it' , some success stories are:

FriendsReunited
BiggerFeet
Black Circles
Toptable.co.uk
Accommodationforstudents.com (Dragons Den UK) (my client)
LingsCars.com (Dragons Den) (my client)
Parklet.co.uk
MyVouchercodes

Ok the above all have 1 thing in common - the ideas are all unique!

And not one of them copied the other's ideas.........

Food for thought isn't it.

 

Sheesh dude, for someone with all the answers, I can't imagine why you would waste your time bringing a 2-year-old dead thread back to life?

I will admit there is one nugget of useful advice in this thread from iShopHQ...the money to be made in niche directories is from folks looking for information/sites on that niche NOT submitters.

 

My post was supposed to be inspiring and motivational, and you can't see the point I'm making?

 

Yeah man old thread, start new ones and keep it fresh will ya!

"the money to be made in niche directories is from folks looking for information/sites on that niche NOT submitters."

Good point!