Is owning your own directory profitable? I know that some directories charge for their use, but others are free, and I have often wondered...why? How can they put their time into that directory without benefit? What are some benefits?
Free directories are usually with low PR or have other advertisements besides featured listings. Its the matter of building a directory, thats why people leave it free for the first couple of months.
Free directories get a lot of industry related traffic along with the spam. I suppose its good for Adsense but its a question I often ask as well.
It seems that with the lack of content, and just a bunch of outgoing links...that it would not even be that good for Adsense. That is just my initial thought. Thanks for your replies
It is really hard to make money with a free directory, most end up turning paid or just being neglected/sold off. You can read a blog post I made about my experience owning a free directory. It is easier to earn money with a paid directory but you really have to invest time and money in building it up first.
If you are new and want to know more about the directory business iin the beginning, then try setting up a free directory first to "learn the trade", so to speak, before switching to paid. Its very hard to maintain a free directory for long, when Mishre was free at one time I had to deal with a lot of crap sites such as MFAs and affiliate letters and spam. Since turning to the paid model my headache has been significantly much lesser.
You post was dead on and very entertaining. I found myself relating to each step. localboy - running a directory or multiple directories is a tough, time consuming job. Unless you have a large budget to get started, most people will start their directories as free and then move to paid as they become annoyed at what people will try to submit. I wish you luck...
Ownig and managing a free directory, in my opinion is just waste of time , unless you have very seo friendly, highly positioned directory, for specific keyword. or you have branded like DmoZ
Offering things for free and making money just do not go together. How can they? How can you build quality for free?
I have no idea why people keep saying you need a large budget to make a directory or for that matter any site successful. It is absolute rubbish, learn the fundamentals of SEO and work hard and it costs nothing.
All my general directories are free and they will stay free for a long time. Most of them has been established over one year ago so no one can say they are new. Have a look at Yhay Directory I have nearly 30 000 backlinks and about 14 000 indexed pages I have many mods installed - probably half of the paid directories around don't have that many I have unique articles for each main category and for several subcategories I also made a video for youtube which you can find it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDSOoAi2QJY It is free. Why? First of all because there is a lot of traffic coming in. A lot of spam as well - so what? Spam can be easily deleted I receive between 70 and 200 daily submissions but no more than 5% are accepted. Regarding the revenue, no offence but I don't see many PR3 or PR4 paid directories earning as much as Yhay. It is free so you guys don't be afraid to start a new free directory. With the right promotion you'll be able to monetize your free site. I hate to say but I've seen so many new directories starting paid under the pretext of spam. If you are an editor your job is to deal with spam too.
I agree. I have one....selling some links here and there...but not much...Thinking about selling it...so, you see...
I started off free because its the right thing to do. The internet is a resource which allows us to interact and exchange freely. However I soon changed my mind after getting bombed with spam from industy insiders who dont know where todraw the line. This is a wild place where one has to develop the knack of thinking on ones feet. I just couldnt hack it as a free directory and I am chuffed to see it working, just as I am chuffed to have had a few of my sites accepted in Yhay. Isnt there a twin Yrgo? I always pair those two in my mind but thats what lists do for you.
Things change all the time and now that we have got rid of the need to pay door money for artificial PR its going to be a lot easier. Why does one have to pay $$$ to promote site? Where does this money go? What does "promoting" you site achieve? What are we trying to do or rather what should we be doing and why?
That simply is not making sense, A general business or service pays a fee to list in a directory to i guess promote that business, in that a directory if run properly is also run as and treated as such, another business so in turn pays to advertise as any other business would.
The question I was asking is why do you need to promote a directory to be successful? No one buys high PR links anymore, so why bother? What is a directory? Is it business listing that feeds traffic to the listed sites? Is this why you need to spend $$$? If so, where do you get that traffic? Who do you pay your $$$'s to?