I have receiving tons of offers, thanks to my signature. But I am here with this thread out of frustration! Are quality, real value directories dead? Directories I see everyday; fuc**n dropped domains, PR freaks, crap shit for sale. I am ashamed to say that the new generation of directory owners only makes SHIT. Creed, Anon, Jeff, Amit, Swedal, Malcolm, sorry to have missed out on a lot of oldies; will such minds ever be born again? Are the great brains on verge of extinct like the Dino's?? I think we need to catch hold of a scientist and the oldies, remove some dna's from each of the oldies and store in the museum. So that the new generation can take a tour to the museum and can be shown; "Boy they are your Great Grandfather who had the master brains to make 'quality' directories."
So what else is new? Its always been like this, even in the "directory hay-day". The level of crap vs. good is about the same as it always had been. I see no signs of it getting better or worse.
Lol - Like you I had been watching for directories available for sale. I still do but not quite as actively because they are almost all crap and you don't know what kind of things the previous owner may have done for "promotion". It just reinforced what I already knew. If you want a good, quality directory you need to build it which is probably as it always has been. That is the way I go.... I watch for buying opportunities but honestly have only come across a couple that I seriously thought about. To this day I kick myself about not buying one of them when I had the chance. In most cases - not all. What you get when buying someone else's directory is all the headaches they created. In nearly every case the database is a crappy category dump filled with listings that have no business being there, keyword spam and duplicate content. The only realistic fix is to hit the DELETE button and start over. Most are built on free phpld versions with free templates ugh. All you really end up with that could be usable would be the domain but in most cases (like you pointed out) that is crap too. The people selling them only really made them for one purpose and that was to sell it. They know how to install a script on a dropped domain but know nothing about how to build a directory. I came to realize that with rare exceptions one is really just better off to build what you want....
I did pick up a some good quality stuff but again they were by the oldies. New generation seems to have lost it while producing directories. Its like the newbies prefer test tube babies, ie., no pain/excitement/fun. Where as oldies follow/prefer....
I too have noticed the increased number of less-than-ethical directory owners...just check out the Solicitations forum. But I have also noticed that webmasters are getting much better at spotting these low-quality directories. It seems most people these days are quick to notice those that are: Using dropped domains to build a "new PR 3-5" directory. Using common category/link dumps. Building several directories on the same database. Auto-approving everything submitted. Building many free directories for the purpose of harvesting email for spam. There is not much that can be done about these scammers and spammers though other than educating people about them.
I think any decent directory is going to be held onto though isn't it? It sort of makes them special, owning one is a gamble because they can be penalised too easily, you can see plenty out there on the search engines that have never been mentioned here, got pr and a nice look and are quite cool. If someone wants to sell a site to you, its either because its no good to them or they genuinely dont have time for it (maybe kids, a full time job, etc) but most likely the site wont earn them anything so they will want to sell it. Meaning you will find only pr stripped, junk filled monsters. And if its not one of those then they will hold onto it and keep quiet about it and let it earn a little here and there and hope that it never gets penalised.
Pipes somewhere down the lane I feel directories are not penalized. Man people have fukin PR6 - PR5 with sidewides loaded and shit loaded for months. No dropped domain, though backlinks obtained hacking gov sites, high pr sites and more.
Hello fellow directory owners I'm still here, but nothing much to really converse about. Been up to some really good innovating and also working on other projects aside from directories. Humm, I see directories gaming PR everyday AND getting away with it. For example... I need not say anymore.
Every aspect of internet marketing is getting watered down and flooded with crap. I still receive paid directory submissions every day but volume is clearly trending down. My primary business is debt lead generation via organic SE traffic. There is so much to compete with, both high quality and black hat, that volume there to is in decline. After 10 years of working at home and making a nice living, I'm not sure what I am going to do.
There are still many good directories out there but some of their owners prefer to remain underground.
Sunny, first of all, i really laughed my ass off after reading your thread. The Dino comparison was pretty funny! As for the issue i can simply say that old directory owners were putting in efforts and money into the directory, lot of innovative stuff, etc. All were focused on making their directories better than their competitors. That made the best come out of every directory owner. And soon, all competitors were getting rewarded for their hard work whether it be in terms of money or recognition among fellow mates. Thereafter came those mediocre who just saw the last part of the whole idea, i.e. making money. If i remember correctly, we use to term them as QBC (Quick Buck Crew, Crap or something). That changed the market at once and no one recovered very well thereafter! Of course, now when you look back into those times you realize how fun that whole competition really was!!!! And NO!!!!!! Those days are not coming back ever, even if we wish they were! Anyways, even after those glorified days, i still see few directories rising from the ashes and few new directories that are beginning to make a mark. So maybe the future isn't that bad afterall!