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Do you think these Directories are

Discussion in 'Directories' started by internetmarketingiq, May 29, 2008.

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  1. #1
    ranking poorly because....

    1. The people don't know how to market them?
    2. The script isn't good for SEO?
    3. The Niche is too Narrow?
    4. Nobody uses Directories Anymore?
    5. Poor Domain Names?

    Or do you think it's some other reason?

    These are all based on PHPMYDIRECTORY which looks like a good script and has some decent 3rd party templates. But I have yet to find a single Directory using the script that appear to have any real traffic.

    www.b4uhotels.com - Alexa Rank 5.3 mil
    www.FindSoKy.com - Alexa Rank 2.5 mil
    www.whatcomcountyguide.com - Alexa Rank 1.9 mil
    www.actressactor.com - Alexa Rank 4.6 mil
    www.dcedental.com - Alexa Rank 1.5 mil
    www.costaricaweblink.com - Alexa Rank 6.1 mil

    This is just a small list. This is a paid script that has been around for a number of years. I looked at a lot of sites based on this Script and none of them seem to be ranking well. Maybe I shouldn't be using Alexa as a baseline, but it seems to be a decent barameter of sites in general.

    What do you think?

    Is this script a bad investment or are directories just a bad idea? Does anyone know of a Directory based on this script that is doing well? Any other scripts that are doing well or better than this one for Directories?
     
    internetmarketingiq, May 29, 2008 IP
    Spider-Man likes this.
  2. mikey1090

    mikey1090 Moderator Staff

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    #2
    Niche directories will always have a worse alexa rank as few webmasters visit them.
     
    mikey1090, May 30, 2008 IP
  3. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

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    #3
    The alexa rank is based on traffic and it's only fair to compare them with sites from the same niche.

    Traffic only comes with promotion and SERPs so I'd be looking at that first. Bots like fresh content, unique content, pages with content and not just links, and finally inbound links. Then there's the age of the site, onpage optimisation...

    The only fair way to review these is to compare them to their COMPETITION and see how other directories in the same niche perform. Know any other Bellingham county directories?
     
    sarahk, May 30, 2008 IP
    JamieG and CReed like this.
  4. JamieG

    JamieG Banned

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    #4
    sarahk covers everything just nicely above, so I'll just expand on the first directory as one thing that definitely shouted at me with the first one was the spamming of keywords, I think in one I saw 9 references to Canada on one page, example below:

    These are either manually put into the meta description or breadcrumbed so its what the search engines see. They won't like that spam. I didn't like the domain.com/categories/then_the_link.html either, shouldn't need to have the results go that deep.
     
    JamieG, May 30, 2008 IP
  5. pipes

    pipes Prominent Member

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    #5
    2. The script isn't good for SEO?

    I would never blame a script for seo problems because you can always do something about that, either yourself or from a coder or both.

    Many people say Joomla is poor for seo but im sure many can make a joomla based site do well in the serps.
     
    pipes, May 30, 2008 IP
  6. enQuira

    enQuira Peon

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    #6
    pipes you can blame a script for seo unfriendliness, all you have to do is look at that page it generates (url, layout, code, ...).
     
    enQuira, May 30, 2008 IP
  7. floppydrivez

    floppydrivez Peon

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    #7
    You can easily blame a script for SEO/SEM compatibility out of the box, but at the end of the day its all about the master. I have made tons of changes to mine to extend it.
     
    floppydrivez, May 30, 2008 IP
  8. JamieG

    JamieG Banned

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    #8
    Of course you can blame a script for seo, if it creates poor sitemaps that loop, unfriendly urls and more. I don't think pipes was actually meaning that even though it did read that way. What I think (and he can correct me if I'm wrong) is that scripts with these problems can be fixed to be resolved to work. Mind you, who buys a script to fix?
     
    JamieG, May 30, 2008 IP
  9. pipes

    pipes Prominent Member

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    #9
    Well yeah i agree :)

    True

    You guys know what i mean though :) once you get the script you can do alterations if your a coder especially you can get busy and make any changes you feel neccessary.
     
    pipes, May 30, 2008 IP
  10. hecto

    hecto Well-Known Member

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    #10
    there seems to be a lot wrong with them, they names arent that great first of all and page rank isnt great...also not much seo work seems to have been done on them.
     
    hecto, May 30, 2008 IP
  11. Spider-Man

    Spider-Man Banned

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    #11
    One word: Marketing.
     
    Spider-Man, May 30, 2008 IP