Dead Directories

Several months ago, I did a round of over a thousand directory submissions.

I went back today to review them so that I could take the remaining "Waiting" tags off the "Listed Me?" field in my big list of directories.

It was somewhat discouraging to note how many directories added NONE of my eighteen sites. That gets them a "NO" in the "Listed Me?" field.

Listing even ONE site gets a "YES" on the "Listed Me?" field. I figure "Hey, some people are picky, but anyone can find something to like on at least one of my sites."

A good percentage of people who build directories later abandon them -- and leave them online.

My feeling is that they just lose interest, but they don't want to give up the small recurring revenue stream which will run for years even on a dying web site.

My question is...

Should I add rel="nofollow" attributes to the links on my big list of directories?

This will have two effects. It will cease to reward these folks for poor behavior, and it will (slightly) increase the benefits to the good directories.

I could delete them altogether from my big directory list, but I keep them there to remind all directory list maintainers (including me!) not to re-add them.

Perhaps I should be even more vocal in the "Comments" field?

What do you think?

 

don't make a link ( just text) to dead directories at all.

 

Also, put the heading over such dead directories and do mention why do you think they are dead. This would be a great help to others, who waste their time to later discover that those directories are dead.

 

I think people start up directories and then discover that they're more work than what they bargained for; especially if they are inexperienced.

Did you email them by chance? I've found some directories where my site was accidently deleted. I politely asked about it and found it to be an honest mistake; and got added back in with special treatment to boot.....

 

Will, you didn't submit to Tsection?

 

Tsection:

I didn't know about it until just now.

Thanks for the heads up!

 

Tsection is the best looking directory around.

Greetings Tsection!!

 

Never realised till now, Tsection has a web directory

Nice work Tsection!!

 

I concur, when doing a lot of directory submissions, this one is like a breath of fresh air

 

Thanks Tuning, webhost and Padawan!

Yeah, I think I will edit my Avatar to include the word 'Directory' as it is not really that obvious is it?

 

Yep, Tsection is a professional directory, managed well from what I have seen and is nicely designed.

 

Thanks Design Agent! Although, I don't remember your sites. Please feel free to submit them. Cheers

 

I concurr, I myself started a web directory alittle over a month ago and get about 50 submissions a day. And it is very hard to review each one before accepting them...Out of the 50 I accept about 75% and I have had to ban one submitter because of bad practices.

I should stress to newbies, it is better to make your first directory a recip, or pay so that it will slow down the new entries until you get a handle of the amount of work involved.

And Will, I think that it would be best not to link to any directory unless you know the owner, because they do have a habit of dropping out of existance