Wish you well in your endeavors but you are entering a very competitive vertical market You are new and you need to get established, I suggest you become very active on forums for a start to get known and work hard and continuously marketing and promoting your directory and establishing backlinks I think the progress timeline will dictate at what time you will be able to start charging. But as per our experience suggest m & p for minimum 3 months This is an estimate hope you get there quicker
what do have apart from 400 links that people should start buying links lemme know? Do you have all the things required to run a paid web directory? Good piece of advice has already been given by brithshguy(pete) follow the same.
Start charging people now if you want to establish your directory as paid and not free i would suggest not waiting any longer, promote it how you intend to go on.
But 400 links is one thing, the PR ranking of your directory is another. What is your PR ranking at the moment? I suggest at least wait till you have say a PR 2 or PR 3 before charging, else who would pay if it doesn't help their url by giving them good PR back links?
People do still pay without pr in place, i get submissions to one of mine with zero pr. I get more submissions to my directory with no pr than i do to my directories with pr. Maybe no pr is the new pr.
Thanks for the help guys. Its just that hundreds of free links are being added its so hard to control. I have about 3 sponsored links already on my first day. Today makes my second day. What if i allow free listing for reciprocal links, and charge for regular listings. Will that help with PR
Expect no PR gain with reciprocal submissions, people submit link that they themselves don't link too, neither have PR, nor are indexed. Keep submitting your directory to other directories, promote it via your signature, avatar etc & expect decent submissions and PR.
"britishguy" is correct...let your directory become popular first then decide. wait at least 3-4 months, mean while promote it as much as possible.
So keep accepting the free links ? Is too many links a bad thing ? you guys are great by the way. thanks for the fast response.
Do you have Captcha installed or some other method to stop the auto submissions ( mainly spam ) if not that may help. Next with your free ( if you keep it ) that should play second fiddle to your paid submissions in that these you work through only after attending those that have paid. Keep in mind quality over quantity will see long term benifits.
Yes Captcha is install. good quality links but its so many links. I am wondering if thats normal. I got over 400 links so far in a period of 24 hrs.
I wouldnt delay in switching to paid either you will find it would be a better way to spend your time adding new links yourself than approving free links if you are intending in switching at some stage anyway what benefit to have sites included with exactly the same titles and descriptions used in every other directory?
I would also support what Pipes has advised in starting as you wish to end, so perhaps some quiet time to focus on exactly how you want your directory to be then implimenting it.
Get 2-3K links in your directory, add some unique stuff, get some good pr, and then consider going paid.
I would really want to make earnings from ads and paid listings. Do advertising programs work on web directory's.
Im trying to think of what I could add thats unique. I have a web hosting site , a proxy and a url redirection service. Could I use those on my web directory ?