THIS BLOG HAS MOVED TO DIRECTORYEDITOR.COM

Thank you for visiting. You can continued to read and participate in "The Editor's Guide to Web Directories" at its new home, located at http:/www.directoryeditor.com/.

Zeal To Shut Down on March 28

Posted yesterday in the Zealot Round Table forum was a message stating that Zeal.com is being shut down:

Thank you for being a part of the Zeal community and contributing your time and knowledge to the Directory. After trying to put the deserved resources behind Zeal, we have made the conscious decision to shut down Zeal.com. On March 28, 2006 Zeal will no longer be available. We are not selling Zeal.com and have no future plans for it at this time.

The message goes on to softly pitch an alternative LookSmart product - Furl.

I'm certainly sorry to see Zeal go down. Even though I am not a Zealot, I still link to them from this blog because I feel they are a valuable resource for non-commercial websites. I feel bad for all of those heavily involved with the project as they now get shut out of something they put significant time into. Hopefully this will only be temporary and someone or some corp will step in and re-open the doors.

To read what others are saying about this news - check out this thread from the High Rankings Forum.

SEW Sub-Forum lays down New Guidelines

Yesterday, SEW Mod Chris Boggs added new guidelines for the "Other Search Engines and Directories" area. Thankfully, SEW wants to divert discussion of *new* directories and search engines to the BETA Test area and keep the "Other Search Engines and Directories" area for discussions about established directories and search engines.

We ask that if you have a new directory or search engine, that you place your announcement in the BETA Test area in order to ask people for their opinions. It is highly recommended that you take the time to create a formal introduction, and try to highlight why you feel the directory or search engine is worthy of introduction and discussion. Repeated links and/or seemingly “fly-by” posts will most likely be deleted by the BETA Test Moderator.

The guidelines also contain a list of what SEW views as "other" established directories and search engines worthy of discussion in this area. I guess if the "other" directory or search engine you want to talk about isn't on the list, than you should think twice about posting it.

I frequently visit this sub-forum and notice that most of the activity seems to come from "announcements" of new directories and search engines. I applaud the SEW Moderators for adding these new guidelines in an attempt to keep the discussions "on topic."

Top Reasons why directories FAIL

I was inspired to post this when I received a phone call from a fellow webmaster - stating that he read in some forum about how the apocalypse is coming for web directories. Even though I know that this does not hold true for quality directories, it still hurts when someone inadvertently classifies your directory with those that have contributed to this generalization. Quite frankly, it sucks that this generalization even exists but I can certainly understand why.

It's mainly because so many craptastic directories have crashed and burned within the past few years... and instead of looking for specific reasons as to why a directory was "white-barred" or dropped from the SERPs, people just assume there is a general bias against directories. Well I'm here to dispel this generalization by pointing out the specific reasons for why some directories fail:

1. They lack quality. The websites listed in a directory and the fashion of which they are listed - are a direct reflection on the quality of content. By looking at the listings and how they have been categorized, most visitors can quickly tell if a directory is a viable resource or only exists to sell links.
2. They failed to grow naturally. Those in charge tend to acquire (purchase) too many in-bound links in too short of a time period resulting in a filter or ban from the SE's.
3. They fail to stay up to date. Directories need to be nurtured on a daily basis. New content (listings) should be added each and every day and editors should maintain the quality and relevance of the categories they are assigned. This means that link rot within a directory should be quickly dealt with and the listing content should be updated if and when the website is updated.
   
4. They sell links. Instead of having site guidelines to promote quality, some directory editors simply link to any website as long as they pay the inclusion fee.
5. They go heavy on the keywords. Listing titles and descriptions stuffed with keywords will read like spam to both humans and search bots.
6. They force webmasters to reciprocate links.

The public should know that quality human-built directories still exist. Don't let these fly-by-night directories tarnish what was good and what is still good about DMOZ, Yahoo, bCentral, Business.com and a few others. It takes a lot of time and human resource to index the WWW - all while maintaining quality. Ya'gotta be in it for the long haul...

ODP Report for 2005

Thanks to Threadwatch.org for tipping me off on the annual report released by the ODP's volunteer administration.

The report was compiled to inform the editor community and public about the development of the ODP project in 2005. It seems that the web's most comprehensive human-edited directory grew almost 5% in the year 2005 - adding 221,552 new listings.

The report also discloses the amount of volunteer editors currently involved with the project. Interesting to see that DMOZ accepted 4,776 new editors in 2005 but they finished the year with less editors then when they started! SeoBook from ThreadWatch said it best:

"That is some SERIOUS editor churn..."

What's interesting to me is that the report documents 7,744 "active" editor accounts on December 31, 2005 and about 221,552 new listings added for the year. That averages out to about 28 new listings per active editor! 28 new listings seems awfully low to me. I know it's mostly about quality and not quantity with DMOZ and editor responsibilities certainly consist of more than just adding sites - but 28?! Most editors I know can add 28 quality sites in under an hour. How dedicated are these 7,744 DMOZ editors?

Best Looking Directory

When it comes to web design, I have never been one to care much about being the most fancy or even the "best looking." In fact, I tend to favor the usability of a website rather than its bells and whistles. This is partly why I never bought into Flash design.

Sure, I think it's fine and maybe even cool to have a personal website designed entirely with Flash Animation but when it comes to designing a corporate website where you are selling a product or service, I think it's always better to follow the KISS principle. Make it as easy as possible for your users to find the information and/or purchase the product they want. Enable them to do so without having to leave your site to download the latest Flash or Java extensions.

Unfortunately, by keeping things simple, it's likely that your website will not win any "best looking" awards. However, this hasn't stopped the Best of the Web Directory from receiving a couple of honorable mentions in the Digital Point thread titled "Best Looking Directories." Thanks to WhatiFind, muchacho, and clasione for the props on the new BOTW design. Even though we yearn to be considered "The Best Directory" period; this is still very nice and appreciated. :-)

Paid Link Controversy

There has been a slew of blog posts and discussion in various forums on whether or not paid links are good or bad. Much of the recent rise comes from Jeremy Zawodny's experiment on selling links from his personal blog, and from Matt Cutt's recommendations for using "nofollow" tags.

Being the "high-profile" blog that it is, many feel that Jeremy is playing with fire by offering site wide text link ads - even though the ads themselves are "spam free" and somewhat "on-topic."

Personally I doubt any search engine will drop Zawodny's blog from its index. We are more likely to see Google de-value the sponsored links - as they have a history of doing so for other "high-profile" sites.

This debate actually hits pretty close to home for my company as we are one of the sponsors on Zawodny's blog. We recently contacted Jeremy, kindly asking him to add the "nofollow" tag to our link. Given the relevancy and natural anchor text, I personally thought it was unnecessary but I certainly understand that there is still that minute chance Google's algorithm won't just de-value the link, but penalize the sponsor as well. I know - sounds extremely paranoid but do we have any other choice? In this case, it seems that Google's answer for a flawed algorithm is the nofollow tag. What a pain in the ass!