how hard is to keep directory accepting submissions free of charge. I run a popular directory Human Ranked Directory Project and working hard to keep free. It has been really hard for me. I have PR4 and more than 8 months old with some nice visitors. I just cant resist myself to switch to completly paid one. I am not worried about making money from my site, but what i feel that building a quality directory is utmost importance than anything. This can be done easily with free submissions. We get enough express submissions to support ourself. How many of you had kept your directory free for a long time? Is accepting free submissions good or bad? Please post your views.
yes spam is a factor, but then it also is for paid directories, not just free ones (submitted but not paid)
Well, I run many paid directories and according to my experience, spam and forbidden sites are now submitted less than when they were free.
olddocks, I've submitted sites to your directory before. I really like what you've done with the visible editorial scores for every listing. I would imagine that anyone who actually visits your site (versus autosubmitters) will see that you are not blindly accepting crap submissions. That probably helps prevent you from facing the volume of crap submissions that I imagine plague most free directories. We are trying a new concept with Strongest Brands and we expect to keep free submissions forever.
truly said. what the real advantage i have with free ones, i have the control of denying to accept. On the contrary, no wonder that many of paid submissions are crap sites and MFA. Because you guarantee to include for paid ones, you are forced to accept. This is where dmoz excels keeping free not going paid. And good luck for your concept.
All my directories are free, and I have no plans to change it. I believe in the free model for directories. What has it meant for submitters? Well, longer approval times for sure. For me it means a lot of time approving sites. But I have totally customized my approval methods to deal with the huge volumes of submissions we get. Once I reached a certain number of submissions a day, I knew it would be impossible to keep up without some automation. I have scripts that run through the pending queue to automatically delete what I know are junk submissions. These scripts are key to me being able to keep everything free.
yeah, very well said about scripts. Infact we use a script where free submissions will be allowed only once, and our system will decline/block multiple submissions. If the editor declines their submission, no way they can submit again. by this way we dont get any overhead in terms of number of submissions we get.
I run a paid only directory and I deny paid listings for MFA, body part enlargements etc… On a high quality directory, directory integrity is very important. Cheers
It has been said in these forums before ---> If you run a free directory, every time someone submits a site it costs you something. I have more enjoyable hobbies than running a directory so if it is going to cost a webmaster everytime someone submits almost everyone will want to at least break-even or make a few bucks, hence most directories do not remain free.
Whether free or paid, if the directory is a good one you will have to contend with spam regardless. I do agree that within the free directories you will get more spam, but you're going to get it regardless. Sometimes capcha is something that needs to be put in place, whether it be temporary or permanent. (Just let Chris get his submissions in first. hahaha.. chris and I have had many conversations over capcha.)
keep it free, make it simple captcha and people will submit. It will reduce the spam to a limit, but some spams will go through anything. I mean i get them on my paid directory. Free directory gets you tons of traffic, so sell sitewide links and you are good.
I keep it free and accept only site with PR which saves me a lot of time and get away from spam site. Although some people, even I, thought it is not reasonable.
Another issue is how many of your internal pages are ranked. Your directory only has the home page ranked, so unless the link is on the homepage, you're passing a PR0 to other sites (not to mention the other links on the page). Don't get me wrong though, having a good PR on the homepage will usually lead to some of that going to the other pages. On the other hand, I have seen some PR0 directories, which I won't mention here, that are charging upwards of $30 for placement on their site. Sure it may go up in time, but i'll keep my $30 till then. Sites like Aviva which have a PR7 homepage and PR5 internal pages can justify a price of $35 because the link is worth it. I would suggest keeping it free and being very selective at the same time. Build up quality links to your internal pages and once they pass good PR, consider offering a paid option. Hope this helps.
My free directory just got slammed and cause my database to crash...it was all spam, over 4000 useless sites submitted at once. When I get omy directory back online...i'm going the paid route since everything else is in place (SEO, PR, SE friendly, etc.)