I'm thinking about it, but if it is a COMPLETE waste of time, I'd like to know from first-hand experience
I've a web directory for e-commerce shops in Singapore. It's not really a waste of time because I earn good money from direct advertising and adsense. It depends on your ad placement.
There is a lot of competition from people who know what they're doing. It's not a complete waste of time. It just takes time, effort, patience and money.
The correct title for this thread would have been "has anyone not tried to start a web directory site?". Everyone on DP seems to have a directory. . A successful directory will need hard work and deep pockets. If you can provide enough of both, then only think about it. Otherwise there are 1000s of directories around that don't even make $10 a year.
if you have mid $x,xxx to low $xx,xxx to spend, lots of time and care then go start a paid directory. otherwise dont bother - its not easy, cheap or for the lazy.
I've got one. I don't invest any real money in it. But it's a good traffic generator and is useful for my link partners, and people that are given a link. I don't ask money for links, a few dollars here and there doesn't make any difference as I have a business.
Hmm, that's kinda what I'm going after. I'm confused about why it would cost so much money. Mid $x,xxx to low $xx,xxx!? wow.
Only costs if you pay for link from high PR sites, and they can cost a lot especially sitewide. On my directory I've done some reciprocal linking with a few sites and traffic is not bad,not bad at all. I think if you intentd to sell links, you'll need high PR, so you'll need to buy links. In the end for me, if it boosts the Google ranking of my own sites - maybe I get an extra job a year - which will do me just proud rather than asking people for a few bucks.
I'll use this project to help me learn Ruby on Rails. Once I'm done, I'll update this thread with a link to my custom article directory built with Ruby on Rails. ... wish me luck lol.