PR and keyword laden anchor text are not the only benefits that I, as a submitter, am looking for in a directory. I believe that search engines give more weight to links when pages are focused on a single topic. As such, I like to submit my sites to directories that offer appropriate topical categories. There is a difference between topical categories like Gardening or Business Management and "structural" categories like Blogs or Forums. It's a waste of my time as a submitter to pursue listings in general structural categories like Internet/Forums when I'm really interested in having my site only associated with other gardening sites/forums. I highly recommend that directory owners separate the topical and structural categories and arrange them logically (for example repeating all the structural cats as sub-cats of every topical cat) if there is really a need for the structural categories. Thanks for listening... I feel better now.
Maybe this is a 3 or 5 Deep Review Options http://www.forplex.com/Home_D__cor/ That maybe a selection choice for you Thanks for the consideration
http://www.blogaboutmysite.com/directory/Home/Gardening/ Home ~ Gardening Category » Submission Available with 3 or 5 deep links option. Thanks for looking by.
So would this suit your concern? http://www.directorydump.com/shopping/home-and-garden/ where in there is also a Forums & Chats even though there is still a: Home & Garden Directories as well as a Forums Directories which resides in the Directories section in a different category. Rob
http://bqtm.com/computers_and_internet/discussion_forums/home_&_garden/ http://bqtm.com/shopping/home_and_garden/ http://bqtm.com/shopping/home_and_garden/garden/
lol... those were not the type of responses I was expecting. I used gardening as an example there folks. I'm actually expressing a view of the bigger picture here. P.S. and no, my gardening forum is not appropriate for a shopping subcategory.
We have a few categories related to Gardening where you might like to submit. Business -> Home and Garden Shopping -> Gardens Recreation -> Gardens Shopping -> Home and Garden If you would be interested, we can also create a sub-category for you under "Forums"
Tell me/us more about your bigger picture. Examples I've given were more of a question to get a better understanding, because I am uncertain. Nothing more, nothing less. edit: Ok, so if 'shopping' does not suit, then would 'Internet' be more appropriate: http://www.directorydump.com/internet/forums/ whereas there is a Home & Gardening Forums ?
I think I understand what you are saying. It is important for a directory category to have a specific theme as the listings on the pages are looked upon as the content. You want pages that have appropriate keywords instead of general topics that may not be related. ??
I was wondering why people were posting their gardening cats... I thought I misread something and re-read it three more times... I started to think my old age was catching up to me
Rob, thanks... that's the kind of discourse I was hoping for. I'm talking about category structures (taxonomy). Many directories that I run across are simply using some category dump that they imported/uploaded and don't modify them at all. That would be fine if the dumps were well thought out, but most fall short IMO. I own several web sites on a variety of topics. It's pretty rare when I find a directory with a category structure that accommodates all of them topically. Many have cats where I could fit them structurally, but then they would lumped together with a bunch of sites that are unrelated topically. This is what I consider a waste of time. If you are familiar with how Wow directory is set up - separating the topical categories from the regional, then you can imagine a directory that is set up similarly with a separation between topical and "structural" where structural are cats designed to define the structure of a listed site (blog, forum, directory, portal, download site, social networking, etc.). This is what I'm talking about (though it's not necessary to have Wow's cross reference set-up - I used that to illustrate the point).
I think there is a line to be drawn between having a bunch of empty ultra specific categories and just a few generals categories. If a submitter would like to have a category created for their site because the site doesn't accurately fit any other available, I would create it.
Todays, classification is not only based on categories but also tags. Websites with the same tags will be listed together and provide much better relevant result. You can submit in my directory indexu.net and indexubid.com and define the right keywords that suit you to group them in relevant tags.
Perhaps a different example... I have a niche crafts directory. I would much rather have a link in Arts > Crafts > Directories or the like than Directories > Niche. I am not marketing my site as a "niche directory" and having a link there along with the pet directories, fashion directories, webmaster directories, etc doesn't really help me much. I would imagine Google and the others see pages like that as a jumble of totally unrelated links. People with crafts sites are not going to be looking for "niche advertising opporunities" they are looking for "arts and crafts advertising opportunities". Bernard's suggestion is that rather than having a giant category called Forums and putting every forum under the sun in the same place, he's saying that each of the real topics should perhaps have a forum sub-cat instead as that is better for SEO and site visitors. Based on at least some of the suggested categories, it looks like many of you have already done that. The one who posted the shopping categories isn't getting it. The shopping category is IMHO overused and should be removed from most directories. Someone looking for gardening information is not going to hunt for "shopping gardening". And for the love of Pete - don't start posting your crafts categories now.
That's not exactly the point being discussed. Some directory owners would say that a forum belongs in Internet > Forums lumped with all of the other forums regardless of topic. So whether or not someone submitted a more specific category, those who have lumped all of the sites by type of site/structure are not likely to add a forum anywhere else. Bernard was suggesting that a category structure of Internet > Forums is not really helping anyone and directory owners might consider putting forums under the category tree of the topic those forums discuss.