Hello, If anyone of you adding links on your own to your directory (without link owner knowing it)? I want to add some links on my own (a lot of them) and would like to know if i can expect some complains from link/site owners? Is there is something i must be aware of? Please advice Thank you!
Its definitely something that you should do as a directory owner and every self-respecting directory owner does this. It's called "seeding the directory"
I did that in the old days, surely it's fine as long as your directory links do decent sites so it's content won't damage reputation of the sites you include yourself. Never had any problems.
I've had a couple of people object when seeding a pet directory. They were dog breeders who had designed their own site and for some reason they objected to having a free listing. Their listings were in the correct category, the descriptions were correct but they just wanted the listing removed. Dog breeders are a special group of people I decided.
I have done this for a client. no complaints. May be it's a good idea to keep the directory away from adult and gambling sites.
Interesting. Pet people must just be unique birds. I had a pig rescue organization demand to be removed from my directory because I also had a listing for someone who sold pigs for pets. It didn't matter that I included on the page a strong reminder that those cute little piggie babies grow up to be 300 pounders. The rescue organization felt I was advocating pigs as pets which was in conflict with the part of their program to get the laws changed so people couldn't own pigs as pets. At the end of the day, no one has legal grounds to prevent you from linking to their site. If you create a unique description (meaning your words and nothing from their site) and don't use one of their pictures or a screen shot (some lawyers contend screenshots are copyrightable) there is absolutely nothing they can do. Personally, I would think a screen shot or even a single photo would perhaps move it into fair use under the section about a review but that's not a battle I would want to fight.
Every directory is seeded initially. If it were not, you'd have a very difficult time getting anyone to list or take your directory seriously. The key is to insure that you are seeding it with sites that are aware of what you are doing and onboard with or have input in that seeding. My suggestion is that you contact places or sites that you would like to seed your directory with and offer them the free listing. Then you can be sure you have their permission, and their input with regard to descriptions and category placement. Good luck.
I doubt that many people would complain that you listed their site for free in their directory, most wont even notice. Maybe if the directory was filled porn or something then most companies wouldn't want to be mixed in with that or if your categories were a mess, like unrelated sites. Something worth considering if you want to list sites for free that way, consider startups, sites that are in the beta stage, most of those would be glad of the help of being listed in a relevant category in a tidy well kept directory. Lots of startup web apps are often not taking any money to start with as they are trying to establish themselves but often they have very pretty websites.
People start complaining when they find that you have populated your directory with the exact same content as another directory. The duplication is what gets people pissed!
Understandable, and theres so many quality websites out there to choose from if taking the time to find them that theres really no reason other than laziness to populate with the same content as another directory.
Don't worry about complaints. Very very few people get them. If you do get 1 or 2 complaints just remove the sites.
It means seeding a directory is essential if it is then is there any limit to add links or you can add links without any limit ??
Doing it properly wont allow you the time to add so many as to worry about limits, anything other than that is mass approval of everything which doesn't end with a directory but a terrible mess. If you add sites yourself properly then the amount of time it takes to do a few will often put most people off wanting to do it as often. And if a category has say 15 pages, then no paid submitter will even bother.
Thank you very much everyone for your replies, it became very informative topic! @YMC, thanks for this note about screenshots. I havent even thought about that. If we responsible about screenshots hosted on our directories, then how about thumbshot.com screenshots? Can we use it without any problems (the copyright issues are taken by thumbshot.com admins)?
Is there a limit? No. But as pipes has suggested if a category has 15 pages then you are probably doing yourself a dis-service. So what you should do is try and seed as many categories as possible. A directory with one huge category of the same type of website, isn't really of any use to anyone. Take a balanced approach and add a few to each category.
To make it manageable start with a basic top level category structure and add a few sites to each, as you look for sites you'll find those which need a sub-category, add those and again populate them at the same time. It takes time but you'll have a unique populated category structure. What not to do imho is use a dump of 1000's of categories and then try to populate them all - it won't happen.
yeah, this is the thing you should do, you don't need to be aware of smth and the author of the website you added would be just greatful to you for that!
That's what I am doing for my directory, Pr-Hike.com in order to add content to my site. But Im only adding high PageRanked sites or very popular sites that have lots of inbound links in order to add quality to my directory. No site owners have contacted me complaining so far... I do remember I had this travel site and a company contacted me to change their anchor text. Just make sure links are professionally written because you really dont want to damage a company's brand.
Funny I have this happen to me few times on my deep sea fishing directory. Looking at the stats, those boat owners have obviously received hundreds of hits from their free listings, but just did not get it. Demanding removal like it was some kind of crime being listed in top niche directory for free. I have no remorse for this type of people.