Dear Directory Owners and Editors, I have a favour to ask each one of you; to take two minutes from your busy editorial activities and enlighten myself and everyone else in the web industry about how you do your job. Many of us who browse these forums - especially this sub-forum - will have harnessed the power of directory submission to gain search engine rankings, but there appears to be lots of confusion and mis-conceptions and angst around directory submissions - oh, and lots of lists So here's your chance to humble us all with a few minutes effort by just *telling* us what you do, how you do it and how we can help you - simply by filling out this short 2-minute survey on Google Docs: >>> Launch the survey I hope to aggregate the data into a report which will hopefully look to analyze the different trends and methods. Questions like look into the link building tactics you use for your directory and how they can help submitters to improve their rankings. Directory owners are link building experts - why no one quizes directory owners mystifies me; too busy handling submissions? Which leads me on to... Other questions 'What is your biggest gripe with people's directory submissions?' and 'How long does the average submission take for you to handle?' will help us submitters understand how much effort it takes to run a successful directory. If the results from this are interesting/outrageous/downright funny enough - I'll be putting together a YouTube video or something outlining how to submit to directories (how many people really read those guidelines? - I'm guessing "not enough") which could be embedded into your submission pages (perhaps the 'YouTube Directory script' could become commonplace??) >>> Launch the survey What this isn't supposed to be is some sneaky attempt to steer my way into the directory industry, so hold your horses on that one! The information besides domain name (to avoid duplicate results) is entirely anonymous and the results are private. So no, I'm not going to publish an eBook and video series on how to duplicate yourdirectory.com! Your chance to preach to us directory submitters and the internet industries! It'll only take two minutes... >>> Launch the survey
I had some time to kill so I took your survey. NOTE: You need to change your survey so the "What directories are listed in" question doesn't require a selection. I choose "DMOZ" even though I'm not listed there...just so the survery would go through.
Hi there, Thanks very much for taking the time - I've edited the form to make that Q non-compulsory. Cheers,
I completed the survey, not bad at all, I hope your intentions are good with the data you are collecting.
What you wrote is in red. My responses are in blue. All of these statements are very contradictory. In one sentence you say the results are private and in another sentence you are going to make a YouTube video. How the hell are we supposed to trust you with this information after that? Why in the world would any hardworking, self-respecting webmaster in any field reveal their marketing strategies and secrets to the public when there is so much competition. Either you are really naive, extremely arrogant, or have no clue what it takes to create a successful link building strategy that you don't want to share with everyone. Is this a trick question...Isn't this obvious....Not following the submission guidelines...Do directory owners really need to explain this. The question is as ridiculous as people not following the guidelines. Where have you ever seen directory submission guidelines that state "Please spam your title and description with keywords." "Please submit your site to the wrong category." "Please submit your site as a Featured Link, but ignore the payment." "Please use the same exact words for your title and description." etc, etc. What groundbreaking info are we learning from that question? The fact that the answer options you provided for this question are all in seconds, clearly shows that you have absolutely no idea what it takes to operate a directory. Any directory owner that reviews sites within seconds really does not give a crap about their website or yours. You need to change the increments to minutes, such as, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, etc. Are you really the appropriate person to be collecting data to "enlighten" us all? I love this comment, You ask it as if it is the directory owners fault that people don't care enough to read the guidelines. Even I have overlooked submission guidelines before at one directory and my site got rejected for not meeting one of the guidelines. That's the way it goes. It really does not matter how many people read the guidelines because they will all just have their site rejected if the site does not meet them. Read the guidelines or you will get rejected. It's that simple. I get it why can't anyone else. The title of this thread states that you want our opinions, but your survey is asking for specific facts about how we operate/promote our directories. All of your contradictions within this post lead me to have the opinion that you have other motives and that you will not properly use this information. You have created a decent survey, but I do not think that you can actually extrapolate the data and make any significant/valid/credible conclusions or generalizations about the directory industry as a whole. And thus, I do not think that it will be beneficial for directory owners to provide you, the public, or competitors with this information. Too many of us have worked too f*cking hard to just provide the public with information on how we promote our directories, our traffic sources, our "best" link building strategies. That is why we are the directory owners and you are not. We have no obligation to teach you or anyone else what we know. You may have good intentions, but too many other people do not.
Hello... @homepageofthemonth I also hesitated here as i have my own reservations of somebody i dont know, never had conversations with, coming asking questions that could have wrong intentions or could use anything said against our own directories... (sorry dont care for google docs either) Then reading a few off your old threads i have to wonder what info your trying to find here in your SEO quest.. Anyway Im not trying to be hard about this survey, but....hmmmm thx malcolm
I completed the survey, not bad at all, I hope your intentions are good with the data you are collecting.Thanks very much for taking the time - I've edited the form to make that Q non-compulsory.
Why are all your posts on this forum exact copies of stuff posted earlier in the same threads? Reported to the mods. Maybe they can set your straight.
Do i get anything in return for doing this? If i did. Ive been studying something recently and its mentioned how its easier to get people to perform an action once you have given them something, rather than asking first then offering something once you got them to perform the action. Just curious Btw you can have that for free, what i just said.
Hi there, Thanks for commenting. Some of the questions in the survey are specific to nail down overall trends. Perhaps you're right and nothing could come out of it.. but who's to know without investigating in the first place. When handling data, I appreciate it can be so easy to 'generalize'. Regarding the 'YouTube' comment - to make it explicitly clear, if there are enough humourous or outrageous suggestions on the 'Advice for people looking to submit to directories' Q, then my suggestion was to put together a YouTube video for you all to use. Clearly the guidelines must be read, but we don't live in a utopian environment - some people will simply scan right past (perhaps). Other media could be effective? It's a creative idea.. may or may not come into fruitition. Of course. No one's forcing anyone to do anything, but the survey is merely a platform for those who want to use it. If you don't like it, don't use it.
I understand, but there may be other ways to detect duplicates. Anyways nice survey and good luck with your analysis.
I don't get this How will a directory owners link-building tactics (which they are unlikely to share) help submitters of generic websites improve their rankings?
Questions like look into the link building tactics you use for your directory and how they can help submitters to improve their rankings. Directory owners are link building experts - why no one quizes directory owners mystifies me; too busy handling submissions? Which leads me on to... Who said that being a directory owner means they are link building experts? I hate the word expert, to me it sounds like a person is then closed to new information and sees him/herself as god like, anyway, the suggestion of an owner being a link building expert is not right, its a little bit embarrassing. Directory owners are not part of some secret society, dont have inside information. Seriously, are you being sarcastic when you ask if they are too busy handling submissions? Directory link building tactics shared = helping submitters improve their ranking, how does that work exactly?
Not at all; just acknowledging that submissions take a lot of work. Think of links as a flowing concept - A links to B, but the value of A's link is (likely) dependent on the links into A. 'Relevancy' could help illustrate this - a directory about Icelandic Offroading (very niche!) would target it's link building around Icelandic Offroading in order to pass that relevant (and therefore high-quality) link-juice to its submitters. The question is there to match up the directory niche (general, business, travel etc.) with the link building strategy - to observe the correlations, if there are any.