Topsites: Good or bad?

I have been thinking about adding a topsites to my website, and I would appreciate some opinions before I do so.

Are topsites a good or bad thing? And how specific should they be? Should you go completely niche, and if so what, or should you be more general, with an overall list, but sub-lists within that?

Thankyou.

 

I hate them.

 

what would be the purpose? Revenue? traffic for your site?

I have one ( http://www.top500christian.com ) and it was a subdomain on my site, and it started making about $5 a month, so I bought a domain and now host it separate. I can link my sites from it, and it makes some money, so I like them.

Brandon

 

bad, bad, bad - topsites were the in thing 9 years ago - with chat.

But it does send traffic.

Why not just use a directory ? Easier to understand and use.

 

My list has had it's own domain for a few months, and is getting roughly 1500 uniques a month...no maintenance, nothing to do except collect a check and use the PR4 for linking.

 

Maybe I have a bad opinion of Topsites cause I once purchased a perl topsite script... and never got it to work

Any more good experiences out there ?

BTW, what is your topsite Afterhim.com ?

 

My site is a Christian list so it is pretty niche.

http://www.top500christian.com

I said it had no maintenance, but I do have to approve/deny members every few days...takes about 10 minutes a week.

brandon

 

Have a large ring of niche sites that I was to ad a toplist to. Any scripts that will check for listers backlinks to the site?

Thanks...

 

I already have a directory on the site; in fact that was what I first started with. I just keep bolting on new things I like.

I was looking at a free PHP topsite script called evoTopsites which looks quite good.

I think a bit of both, but mostly as an additional feature.

 

I have used many scripts in the past, and I really like Aardvark.

Brandon

 

Does it verify that they have reciprical link to the site?

 

just started my own topsites. it's good for people who know how to use it; it brings a lot of traffic. i noticed that gaming websites and web design sites use it a lot. but after doing a lot of research, i have to say that seo is king (my next project)

 

So what's best, to host your own or to use something like www dot topsitelists dot com

 

I've looked at Aardvark too, but evo just seemed better

 

Would you say it's better to target a topsite to a specific niche, or to make one that's more general, but has categories?

 

I would always recommend hosting your own topsite...those free ones have limitation with scripts, advertising, colors, layouts, and other control issues.

egdcltd,

I would stick with a niche, there are millions of general topsites out there.

 

The script I am looking it can do both niche and general (sort of). I am currently trying to decide if that's a good idea. Take a look at http://topsites.directorygold.com to see what I mean. (Please note: this site is not open for submissions yet, it is simply a test site)