A free, link filled & managed directory 4U

[BungeeBones]

Have you ever considered adding a web directory to your website? Get a free, human edited, link filled & managed directory for installation on your website from BungeeBones.com. Just register, get the code and paste it to your website (like Adsense) and get a complet high quality web directory. Even comes with potential to make income in addition to the traffic and benefit to your visitors

 

[SkinnerW]

If I understand correctly you provide feed from your directory?

Wouldn't it be a duplicate content for all the sites who use your feed?

Can you describe in little bit more details this statement: "...comes with potential to make income..."

Thanks

 

[BungeeBones]

Good questions.

First, if I may start by saying I am not at all trying to "spoof" search engines. It may be difficult to believe that statement after seeing some of the elements I have incorporated to try to avoid being penalized but there is a big difference between being penalized and simply not being rewarded by a search engine.

Second, as in all human edited directories, I believe the links in my directory are of the highest quality. So far I have been able to personally inspect each and every site and I then rank them for their relevancy to their selected category. I also have mechanisms in place for their peers (other webmasters) and the general public to review and rank them afterwards. The order of their display is influence by their ranking and, there are financial incentives to get them to find the most relevant category themselves. These links, ratings and categorizing should be a plus to a search engine not something to be penalized for.

Third, the "content" of a directory is links pure and simple. If having the same links in a directory as someone else is a problem for search engines they need to reconfigure their bots in my opinion. If they re-index the abc.com site from my site and then go to your site and re-index it again that is their programming error, not mine. If they want to compare the links on a page, compared to another that is their choice.

But, in an effort to avoid being penalized each installed directory is inserted in the website owners template so the headers, menus, footer etc are unique and branded to that website. Further, when acquiring their directory code from us they enter some custom page title sections so that each web site's title and description is custom to that website.

Another dynamic feature is the dynamic insertion of the current category into the page title and description. This further helps search engines categorize the links on it.

I give each directory host the option of whether to display free links or not and, if so, for how long. I currently have 8 time period options but more can be added easily. This gives 8 possible combinations of links being displayed among the directories.

I too, had the concern you mention and took those steps to try to avoid penalties. The site is very search engine friendly and the directory is indexed readily on all sites. There might be a future where the host can select to omit a certain number of categories but that isn't finalized yet.

When contemplating the affect the directory will have to a site the the situation of the website needs to be considered too. Are they already listed at page 360,000 by the SE? At 360 million? Then a threat to penalize them becomes a mute point. They really have nothing to lose. If they are a high traffic site with its traffic solely from a search engine then it is a much greater concern and should definitely be monitored.

This is a new concept and untested so in the final analysis it becomes a risk-reward comparison that each website owner needs to make. I think as long as the quality is maintained the search engines will welcome the directory and will consider it a plus.

But frankly, I am more concerned about pleasing the people that use the directory than the search engines. I have added features such as the contextual search term builder. It uses the cookie trail of category names the user has entered to submit a more refined search to Google. I have included the "Webmaster Favorites" social bookmarking feature where webmasters can save their favorites for display to the general public on the site. So I hope a human directory visitor will find enough features that they will want to check back to it regularly when they do a search.

 

[BungeeBones]

Re: pricing - income potential

Web directories are popular. With the proliferation of free, open source software it is a simple procedure to install one. Getting the links, maintaining the links, and getting income from one is not so easy.

Yahoo may have set the standard operating procedures for directories. They go something like this - first, host links for free. Get people to submit their own website info and let the directory fill up. second, when the directory starts to reach a point where the visitor traffic warrants it, start charging to list then third, keep bumping up the price.

What I am attempting is to lay a groundwork ahead of time for the webmasters that post the directory on their site to share in the income. In a manner similar to Adsense I ask to "rent" website space from webmasters but instead of renting alongside existing web pages like Adsense does I ask to rent a new, entire page. Instead of showing just four links like Adsense I show them all, organized by category.

Adsense and Pay Per Click have had a problem with fraud from their inception. I instead use a pay per "action" strategy where webmasters get paid for paid link subscribers. Just as other start up directories have to reach the point of "critical mass" where the traffic reaches a marketable size so does BungeeBones. But I recognize this and offer the commission split in anticipation. The more webmasters that add directories to their site the more traffic into the network. The more traffic the higher the paid link income and commissions to the webmasters. On a local website level, paid link sales should reflect the affiliate directory's own traffic level. Higher traffic sites simply will sell more paid links.

Yahoo treats all categories the same. but all directory categories are not created equal. There are some high priced categories such as law, real estate, etc. and there are some such as not-for-profit, girl scouts, little leagues etc that are willing to pay little or none. So the paid link system used on BungeeBones to compensate webmasters is variably priced. Categories start out free for as long as their population is below a certain level. Once the threshold is reached a price gets established (hopefully by directory hosts in that category). Those in it either begin paying or are moved. This system doesn't pit webmasters in bidding wars against each other. Category prices are basically established to remain competitive with other advertising methods such as Pay Per Click. Since there are an infinite number of potential categories there will always be the opportunity for free links but the desire of webmasters to be in the upper, more searched through categories will use pricing to keep their populations at a usable population level.