Do you as a directory owner rely on user submitted sites, or do you make editorial additions to build your directory index? Can a directory reliant on user submissions become a useful/quality resource? Do you expect that you'll receive submissions across the majority of your categories? Can an index easily become imbalanced with a few categories having the majority of listings? Are directories reliant on user submitted sites geared strictly towards webmasters/SEO? Can editorial additions contribute to usefulness and help achieve a better balance? Is there any real benefit to adding a single listing in each category? When is a category considered useful? I'm not sure that a directories reliant on user submissions will become useful resources over time as I see a probability that the majority of listings will be concentrated over fewer topics/categories and the possibility that they will be considered SEO related. Editorial additions can add quality content to a directory, but I'm not sure that adding a single listing just to avoid having empty categories contributes enough overall. Your ideas?
I think there is a benefit to have a link + its description in each category. It's better than nothing, I would think. But to make the page content rich and quality, I think it would be better if you write something for that page. An article in each category would be the best To make a directory more useful resource is much harder than little fix here and there for SEO. Ultimately, the users would know and determine its quality. The attempt to build a quality directory is always about the content, but then there is no absolute way to do it. DMOZ, supposedly the most influential directory, doesn't seem to have quality content IMO. If DMOZ succeeded, I guess any other directories can become as popular as DMOZ. But I tend to think DMOZ's popularity is not the quality. It's just it has been a web directory for the longest time in the Internet User friendly functions in a directory would be required for sure other than the unique content. (I know it's not really about making it useful resource)
Well I'm aiming at one or two in each category to start, but it isn't enough. I was perusing a directory today and in one category it had about 25 links of which I'd estimate 22 were editor-added. I think this is the sort of volume we need to aim for to give solid content and provide users with the image of a popular directory (although most of the submissions on that site were from such big sites, they gave the game away - I would go for a more varied selection).
I don't think a category has to be entirely comprehensive to be useful, but I think it does have to have a selection of good links, and those websites must be live. So one isn't enough, it's just a start. User submissions will definitely imbalance a directory, in favour of business websites. So I think it's best to seed a directory with nonprofits, charities, educational institutions, clubs and societies, and websites for social groups.
IMO, it is not possible to build a quality resource if you are only depending upon user submissions. Editorial contribution on regular basis is a must for any directory that is build to help find people what they are looking for. From a users point of view, if I am searching a directory for finance software and I found a category that offers 1 or 2 listings on the same topic, I wouldn't be impressed and might not search that directory again. A directory must have a mix of both user submitted and editor contributed sites. www.business.com and http://dir.yahoo.com are the perfect examples of the same
I do add handpicked sites myself to Leading Directory. In fact I have just added 07 new sites to 07 catagories so far today.
I personally rely on submitted sites as opposed to adding them myself. I believe that a directory doing this can become a useful and quality resource as the collection of sites has been determined by individuals from all over the place rather than the owner dropping in what they think may be useful, the directory owner may be biased towards a handful and ignore adding others. I think some categories having more listings than others actually looks more natural as for example if all categories were holding around 20 listings each, say accross 800 categories, that may look less natural. Im personally not a believer in placing a site into a previously empty category, id rather let it become populated naturally. Maybe not use RSS to put content into it either, maybe better to add an andividual and unique Article for an empty category, can be written by yourself or purchased but unique. When is a category considered useful? hmmm... maybe when the directory has aged and its grown so that the category has genuinely built over time. If listings are sorted by PR and someone adds PR8 sites into many categories, their sitting freely listed above lower ranked sites that payed good money to be in your directory. Also i think directories tend to have many listings from independant companies and smaller businesses and people are not looking in a directory for a site that wouldn't have submited to the directory. To deal with a category that has no listings its maybe a good idea to make that particular category much cheaper, it means it still gets natural submissions, you still make some cash and we all know those categories that usually get less submissions. I think whats gone wrong too is when directory owners start a directory they add a load of categories that forever seem quiet anyway, categories that you see over thousands of directories but nobody submits to them. Do you get many Ballet submissions? just an example maybe you do.
I disagree with you on this. Adding quality authoritive sites will increase the integrity of the directory and will look more professional. I doubt Google.com or www.whitehouse.gove will ever submit to a small web directory. But by adding them you are giving more value to your pottential customers.
Hi maldives I fully respect your approach and opinion, i guess the fact that we directory owners have varying approaches helps to create variety too.
I don't think theres anything wrong with directory editors trying to find quality sites out there. You'll have a chance to give an organic link to some worthy sites and at the same time better the quality of your directory. If all directory owners had this mentality, wouldn't it better the Google SERP's as well? And of course, if your going to have this mentality and willingness to do so, then I think you should try to find as many deserving sites than just one.
Thanks for sharing opposing views. Much appreciated. I'll stick with my initial thought that editorial listing are necessary if the idea is to create a well balance resource over time. The majority of the sites I've listed would likely never consider submission to our index and I think it adds value that a real user might benefit from.