Why is it the Arts category, the one coincidentally first in almost every directory and probably most likely to be spammed, is not reviewed by those creating directory of directories lists? I've been working on a new Arts related site and was hoping to submit to a few general directories this afternoon. Several hours later and I think I've submitted to a grand total of 2 directories and they both came from the Solicitations section rather than these DoD sites. (And I'm talking about long-running established DoD sites, not the dime a dozen ones that are constantly springing up.) Pretty sad that the wasteland the Solicitations section has become is offering better sites than "professionally reviewed, SEO friendly, directory lists". Why am I ranting today? One general directory with a 5 star "value rating" on a DoD site had amongst real art sites, sites for plastic surgery, cruise vacations, airport parking, web developers, religious gifts, air purifiers, vitamins and air conditioners. Clearly all Arts related sites worthy of being in the top level of the Arts & Humanities section. And that was just on the first page of the listings. As if that's not bad enough...I don't really care how old and respected your directory is, do you really think I want to be on page 40 of a category? For crying out loud, audit the damn category and make more subcategories. It's a win-win - you get more indexed pages, the categories get tighter to subject and submitters don't feel like they're submitting to a page no human eyes will ever see. This is exactly the reason why I decided to never start a DoD site years ago. Silly me assumed that I would be expected to actually visit and research a site before giving it a positive review. And, silly me even further thought the responsibility of running a DoD site included revisiting the sites to ensure that they were still actually following their own guidelines. I'd given up years ago that individual directory owners would understand how to properly run a directory but I am so disappointed to see well-respected DoD sites promoting this crap.
You're making good point and having fully justifiable rant. Art Category should be designated to Art and nothing else. This is exactly what we intend to do at www.qoolest.com Arts Category. fastreplies
I can understand your frustrations, which is why I personally would not want to rate any free directories. The dynamics in the directory industry change quickly and what is free today could be paid tomorrow. A quality directory can go downhill quickly while very few perform the needed cleanups to make their directories a resource and not a link depot. But as one that operates a list I can say that it simply would not be worthwhile to investigate each and every category in a free directory list. Some of the directories out there are running over 3,500 categories. It's just simply too labor intensive to check every category for quality when this is multiplied by hundreds or thousands of directories. However, if a DoD owners goes so far to rate each directory, that opens them up to higher expectations from those that use their lists. What I can say is that is disheartening to see such a lack of support from people that use these lists. I've advertised on most lists around, and I can say the traffic the ads generate is minimal. This is why I priced our ads much lower then competitors because it was the fair thing to do. Those that use such lists and offer no support at all, simply deplete themselves from added features and greater quality down the road. Which brings me to this final point. Directory lists do not make boatloads of money, and they certainly don't generate enough cash to have staff review individual categories of every directory in the list. Most of the lists being run are owned by professional directory submitters themselves. Their reviews likely occur as they submit client sites to their own lists. And unfortunately arts is a category which sees very few submissions.
Excellent point which is bugging my brains as well. How people who have started directories expect to get known if 99% of them hardly using the only places DoD Lists that can promote them the most? We're promoting now qoolest.com in Announcements Forum where at least dozen of directories has been promoted every day and yet in 10 days only 3 owners submitted their directories and considering we offer free review, no others so called "directory owners" use that opportunity to promote their directories. Well, when I claim that some Bozo who just started dead on arrival directory, there is NO doubts in my mind Bozo knows that as well and because there is no commitment, then why bother and promote something that already dead. I feel sorry for people who are wasting time on submitting their sites to directories which started by clowns with no brains and no imagination. fastreplies
Not speaking for anyone else, but at IVS we choose to review using a proven formula that weeds out the vast majority of weakly edited directories. I can understand your frustration, however it's not always simple to locate poor editing. In many cases a directory can be very good for a number of months/years, then one of many things can happen: The directory changes hands/ownership The directory editor loses heart/interest The directory gets spammed and the editor cannot keep up, so their standards drop The directory is abandoned We are very strict about the directories we will include (which is why we include very few these days), however we are removing directories all the time that are reported, or that we notice have editing standards that have slipped. We do our best to talk to the owners and see why this has occurred, with the hope of them turning it around. If that was our list (IVS) then I would hope that someone freely using the list would contribute to it by reporting any directories they feel don't make the grade. Ultimately, our editing team will make the final decision but a report will always get a set of eyes reviewing a particular directory. Quite often a directory's report will get rejected only to be re-reported by a different user. In those instances, a much more thorough review takes place and the reported directory is almost always removed. We believe in communities and we have kept the site free for this reason. We share our resource, and expect that those who use it share their experience with it. Heck, I agree with you. It's a thankless task categorising, reviewing and maintaining a list of directories. Having done it for the years that I have, and seeing the sort of responses that come out if you have even one bad directory listed (and let's face it there's going to be a handful in any list that someone isn't going to be happy with) it's not a fun exercise. It's not enjoyable. There is no reward. All I hope is that someone of your experience, would offer help (or communicate the issue) to the list owner. They can only improve if they are given a chance
Lots of great feedback. As an owner of two niche directories, I realize that sites change overnight and what was a great site can become a bad neighborhood but let me offer some suggestions... 1. When reviewing directories for inclusion, I suggest you start your evaluation by looking at the Arts or whatever category appears first on the home page. For years, I've noticed this is often one of the most poorly categorized areas because it's one I frequent - I have 6 arts related sites. 2. Offer a way for site visitors to let you know that a listing is broken or less than savory - without requiring registration in your forum or site. The DoD that set me off yesterday did offer an anonymous commenting system so I left a note about one of the directories being so poorly categorized. 3. As an owner of two directories, I know it's a time consuming slog to go through the listings and re-review the sites. I started one time to go through the list from oldest to newest - that worked for about 50 listings or so. Then I created a spreadsheet and started auditing categories whenever I added a new site - worked better but left rarely visited categories unaudited. What I do now is keep track in a spreadsheet (I printed it out, I'm an old-school paper kinda gal.) and hope to revisit each category no more than every six months or so. By keeping a list I don't have to remember which ones I've done or not. Maybe DoD owners could do something similar by alphabet or something? 4. I don't mind too much when a directory listed as being free goes paid, many directories do that so I can understand a list being out of date for that. Again, make it easy for a submitter to let you know and hopefully they will. I suspect few folks go beyond the list itself and don't actually look at any written reviews - it might be helpful to create a "report" column with a link to be able to report a bad listing. Sure, you might get some false reports, I do with my sites for broken listings, but it shouldn't produce all that many a day or even weekly. I do understand about DoD and how hard it is to monetize them - the very people who would pay for advertising might be the owners of the biggest POS directory on your site. It creates a horrid conflict of interest and one I imagine many of you constantly struggle with. Fastreplies, I've not bothered submitting to many DoD directories lately. So many of them seem to think there's only general directories or don't offer me any options other than "Other Directories" or a ginormous "Niche Directories" category. I rarely visit the Solicitations area anymore. I only did because I've launched a new site (like I need yet another site to take care of lol) and was looking for a quick boost to help get it indexed better. I will be looking over your site though.
I noticed in other thread you have mentioned "Report" option. Somehow we overlooked that but now we're adding this option and hopefully in day or two it will be fully functional. That was good tip. One Green is coming fastreplies
Glad to hear that you're adding a report function! As far as I could see, it was just about the only thing you were missing. Your new site is pretty Qool! As I said in your announcement thread, I not only submitted but paid for a permanent listing - something I've done only once or twice before. (The few listings I have in paid directories came from when they were free or through bartering.)
If you have an arts-related directory, I'd love to know about it. We have a small, tightly-edited arts directory category at www.IndieCoffeehouse.com Indie Coffeehouse is a directory of art, music & literary liniks, established in 2006. We are very particular about the sites we list and which categories they go into, and there is zero spam. Please feel free to submit your site! It is free (though we do have featured links available, too). http://www.indiecoffeehouse.com cheers ~ Denise
I have read this post with interest. I have recently started a DoD we think we are differant. We only allow directroies and that is all we will allow. We have report buttons for each listing. Take a look at the link in my sig