Why run a directory
Every day tens of new directories get launched. These aim to list websites in suitable categories, and thereby provide a resource for:
a) webmasters, who can list their sites, and
b) for the general public, who can use the directory to find the sites they are looking for as easily as possible.
There are good reasons to submit websites to directories, including the backlink that is gained - loved by google and the other search engines - and the possibility of gaining some visitors to the website. We’ll look at potential traffic in a later post. But why does a webmaster start a directory?
There are four main reasons:
1) Because it is fun and everyone is doing it
2) Because it makes money
3) Because it enables the webmaster to link to their own sites, which benefit from the backlinks
4) Because the directory will gain page rank through reciprocal links, which can then be ‘passed on’ to other sites.
Each of these is debatable (and will be debated, in due course), but valid to some extent. But what is the webmaster taking on when he starts a directory? It is necessary to distinguish between free directories and paid directories at this point.
Free directories can attract hundreds of submissions a day, which means a great deal of work reviewing and approving the sites for the webmaster, for no payment. This can easily become a full-time job.
Paid directories can earn money, and will have much fewer submissions. Sounds better? Well the problem is, unless the webmaster has a reason to submit a site to your paid directory, they won’t bother. It has to offer something over and above the free directories - higher pagerank or the possibilty of traffic are the main two reasons.
So in reality most new directories are free to submit sites to, involve a lot of work, and make no money. Not so tempting. But still they come…
Why did we start bigtangle.com directory? A mixture of all the reasons above.
It is fun (although we now restrict free entries to certain times to stop it being too time-consuming).
It makes a very small amount of money - not at all a sensible amount compared with the time involved, but we believe it will gain good pagerank sooner or later, and become more lucrative.
Yes, we do link to our own sites from bigtangle (although this is probably the weakest reason, because it would be much quicker to submit to other webmasters directories and gain the same benefits)
In due course the pagerank of bigtangle will pass to other sites in our network, and can be targetted as deeplinks if necessary.
Would I recommend others to start a directory? Yes and no! This will be the recurring theme in this category, but if you are willing to spend the time at the beginning on establishing an attractive, well-categorised, directory, and then waiting months or years for a return, it could be just the thing for you…