Best practices for building a new directory on Links.com?

Hi,

I am thinking about building a new directory and will start it out by installing it as a subdirectory of Links.com.

I plan on using this new directory script that was just announced:

SBD Directory Software/

My intention is to build a high quality directory. I am less interest in advertising revenue and more interest in high quality, repeat traffic. I have a few questions and would appreciate comments:

1) Should I implement a general directory or a niche. Most visitors to my site are looking for something to do with entertainment: e.g. TV, Movies, Video, Funny sites, etc. ?

2) Should I request some nominal payment at the beginning or make it free?

3) I intend to only accept high quality sites and probably would ask for submissions to go through the Submit Page on my current WordPress blog that is my homepage, in order to cut down on spam. Would this arrangement work?

4) Is there any article that describes best practices for building a high quality directory?

Thanks for you help.

 

Nice domain for internet businesses, wish you success. BTW This domain worth more than $50K , I think you should be more precise about the software/plan you want to work on.

 

Thanks. Yes, I need more precision but sometimes I just have to try out things and see what attracts visitors and what doesn't. It is very much of a trial-and-error process. Right now I am trying out a new script that aggregates and helps you search for the the Best Daily Deals on the Internet. This seems to be getting some interest so I may develop it more. I think people like its simplicity though I need a better search engine. The author of this script is very difficult to reach.

In so far as a directory is concerned, I am pretty sure that I want to build several niche directories. Since, I have never built a directory I was trying to get an idea of what are the best practices. I like the SBDDirectory software because it has lots of good spam protection, but this morning I came across another WordPress based script called ClassiPress that I am looking at. Once I get a directory up, I will have a much better idea what visitors are looking for.

Thanks for your response.

 

Good effort, If I were you, I would make a social bookmarking system such as Digg, Reddit or folkd..

 

Yes, I thought about this and tried out a pretty good script called Hotaru. However, this is the interesting thing. Visitors did not vote! If you think about it, Digg gets tens of thousands of thousands of visitors and very few actually vote. It is difficult to get people to leave information on a new site. I might have done better if I had a large group of people working with me to seed the site, but I couldn't get my friends to help out and I did want to outsource because I wanted to maintain a high level of quality. Maybe I'll revisit this, once I have a better idea of subject matter. But no matter what I do, Digg is formidable. Propeller just decided to close shop. :-(

Thanks again.

 

Great domain.

You said your site attracts traffic seeking entertainment, humor, comedy and funny stuff; then you must make your directory a niche one to complement your already existing visitors. I would also charge for submissions, a dollar at the very least to cut down on spammers, you can raise the amount later.

I personally use a phpld for one of my directories and it is ok, I heard good things about esyndicat, but in the end I made my own directory from scratch for my list site, its nice to have a directory do exactly what you want it to do. If you are looking for articles on best practices, I have an article here that is aimed toward the directory submitter, but owners could benefit from it as well.

 

Thanks for the suggestions. I agree with you and I'll probably try to put a directory together along these lines. One of my more popular posts on my blog is 22 Best Must Have WordPress Plugins which is oriented toward webmasters, but I know that they represent only a small portion of my visitors. Another one called Links to 22 Daily Deal Social Buying Sites is also very popular. Other than these, it seems like visitors are looking for entertaining sites, based upon their keyword searches.

Great article! It is very helpful. Yes, one of the things I want the directory to do, is maintain a blog posts to keep the front page fresh. PHPLD does this, but not in the way I like. Also, the spam protection on PHPLD is not what I am looking for. SBDDirectory has much better protection but ClassiPress seems to have the best, since it is built on WordPress. The problem with ClassiPress is that there is no real way to try it out before purchasing it and the forum where all of the discussions are going on are closed to non-members. Both products have strong pluses and minuses.

Thanks again for the advice and the link to your article. Greatly appreciate it.

 

Looking for information on what makes and/or how to run a quality directory then this place can't be beat, no ifs, ands or buts.

 

Thanks. I'll shoot on over there and see what they have to say. Appreciate the suggestion.

 

Is it your forum?

 

It's not Harkster's site. The owner is a member here but is not a frequent poster. VileSilencer was probably the first site to list directories and Dan, the owner, has done much to encourage the creation of quality standards among directories.