Testing for Bad Neighbourhoods

I think they're dead in the water unless you have a really specific niche and it's really, really well curated.

I was at an airBnB talk and the lady presenting was talking about the recommendations for various local services that she is asked for. Perfect example of a niche directory and depending on how many properties she manages (in her case >20) there may be value in paid listings.

Or a project we had in mind for a very specific tourist destination to promote the local services and follow the fremium model for what was essentially a paid directory.

 

TripAdvisor is really just a directory with lots of value added
But most directory owners aren't prepared to put that much effort (programming, marketing, moderating etc) into their sites

 

When was the last time you went to a directory to find a website? Not sure anyone does anymore. Outside of some super vertical niches, I'd say directories are worthless/dead these days.

 

Yep, talking about personal experiences with my use of directories. As far as me knowing how much traffic a site that I don't have anything to do with, I'd say that's fairly obvious I don't know how many people come to *any* site (or why).

But I can say with certainty, that *I* have not used a directory to find a site (or anything else) in the last 15 years, nor do I know anyone who does. Even my grandma who barely knows how to use a computer will use a search engine to find things on the Internet.

 

Yep, there will always be people who find something useful that the majority do not.

I'd say it's safe to say that the majority of people do not find a use for directories. If you were to ask 1,000 random people on the street how they find websites on the Internet, I'd be surprised if a single person said they browse directories. I'm sure there is someone out there that does though. But they are losing out on 99.999% of the Internet. Even if I used a very large directory like DMOZ, it would be difficult to ever find what I needed.

 

True, but you are talking about two unlike things. You are talking about someone knowing what a brand is and someone using something unrelated to that brand. That's like trying to compare someone knowing about Starbucks to someone using an ice cream scooper to eat cereal. People are going to know what an ice cream scooper is, even if they don't use it. As far as 10% of people who know what a directory is, using them... I think that number would be extremely high. If you ask 100 people on the street if they know what a directory is, probably 98 would say "yes", and 0 would say they use them.

Let's look at the last 3 things I searched for on the Internet:

"rainmaster eagle"
"rs232 db9 to Ethernet bridge"
"what time does el ranchito close"
"pool cleaning service san diego"

If there's a directory that could have given me better results than Google, I've yet to see one.

The one thing I can think of that directories would be good for would be random exploration. For example if you were bored and wanted to go to a random website to see what was there. But as far as helping me find a relevant site I'm looking for, no.

 

I'd be really interested to know the flow through the directory sites that you have access to.

Is it

• homepage - check categories - submit (and repeat)
• homepage - check categories - click on listing

My last few directories which I've since abandoned were only being used by people submitting links, regular web users never visited.

 

That's what I was asking. From your traffic stats in Analytics which are you seeing and in what sort of percentages?

And you can't honestly be trying to say that directory pages like this are useful?

http://www.amray.com/directory/Business_,038_Commerce/Transportation/

There's no categorisation, no sorting to separate long haul from short, domestic to commercial, country by country. No bloody good me finding domestic house movers in the US next to a freight company in the UK.

 

Okay... {shrug}

I never said no one uses them... I just don't know for what legitimate purpose they would be used for, that's all. There's always someone in the world that does anything you can think of. They aren't good for finding sites or answering search queries. I'm just saying it's been a long, long, long time since I used a directory. And I'm fairly certain it's the same for everyone in the world I know. If I were to ask people if they use directories, the most common answer would probably just be, "hahaha".

Website directories are pretty similar to the old school printed phone directories (not just in name). Sure, people use them... but these days, why? The last time I flipped through the yellow pages trying to find a phone number is probably right about the last time I used a directory (pre-Google).