Resurrecting the Link Directory

Way back in 1999 when I was a newbie to Internet marketing one of the few things that I found at that time to produce traffic was reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking produced consistent traffic and once google came along it was great for SEO too.

People surfed a little differently back then. A links page was something interesting to look at and use. Not something stuffed in by the webmaster for good measure. It really was the essence of the web. You'd view a site and then off to the links page you'd go to see what interesting things it had to offer.

Once Google became popular it changed the web forever. No longer were links built for visitors. They were built for search engines. That's too bad because search engines as a whole are a boring bunch. They don't care much if the information is lively and pertinent. Just that it has good keywords and link authority.

So as webmasters we took those link directories and built them into huge directories. The benefits became threefold. The first, if done correctly the directory became a very valuable resource within a niche. Visitors used and bookmarked it because it provided links that someone had already prequalified. They were good links. Secondly, the trading of links was great for search engine optimization. Back then optimizing for Google was just a matter of getting the most links. Third it provided (legal) doorway pages. The pages of the directory themselves often ranked in the search engines. This had the potential for producing a lot of traffic and it did.

Back in the day I'd just build a nice directory using a robot called Zeus. I'd get a nice reciprocal campaign going and soon have lots of traffic. But alas, all good things must come to an end. Zeus became overused by webmasters who didn't really put a lot of thought into how to use it. Pretty soon everyone was getting link requests and they all looked strangely familiar. Since there were so many bad ones you had to wade through them all to get to the good ones. So you just didn't bother.

Link Rot

Then came link rot. The larger your directory got the more apt it was to have lots and lots of dead links. This killed the usefulness and the search engine benefits of the directory. It took hours on end to check the links for link rot even using automation. This put limitations on the size of the directory as you could only really maintain so much.

Then the final blow to the link directory. Some SEO guy somewhere declared link building dead. The debates raged, rumors flew. Sides were divided. Link building was hit hard. Often times you'd send a request only to get a long hateful email in return telling you how stupid you were for trying to build links. “Didn't you know, link building was dead”.

Web 2.0 Saves the Day

But along comes Web 2.0 on it's shining white steed. Web 2.0 just like it did for article marketing is reviving the link directory in it's own fun and exciting web 2.0 way. I'm not talking about getting lots of bookmarks on bookmarking sites. I'm talking about an actual link directory.

So let's take a look. What can a modern day web 2.0 link directory be other than just a list of links. Here's an example. This knife directory boasts a lot of web 2.0 features.

To start off with the links in the directory that are the most popular rise to the top. If your familiar with google adsense you know this is the ranking system behind adsense. The most enticing links rise to the top. Clicks expire over time keeping things recent so a new link has a chance. It also makes it harder to game the system. If a user reads the description and clicks through then that link gets a little more ranking in the directory. This in itself should help future users find what they are looking for and add value to the directory.

High Value, User Rated, Links

Links are rated by the users and users can comment to them. Have a great experience with a company, now you can say so right in the directory. Give them a high rating with the javascript rating bar. And since the directory can typically rank high for many of these business names it's highly likely that lot's of people will see your comments.

Link Rot Exterminated

Automation is the name of the game here. It used to be a webmaster had to spend hours on hours to keep a directory clean. Now a simple script can be used to ping the sites. If there is a problem the script will unpublish the listing so the webmaster can take a look at his leisure. Maybe the site was just down momentarily and the link can then be easily republished. Run the script on every cron run and there will never be bad links in the directory. That makes me a smiling webmaster because the search engines will never penailze me for having to many bad links.

Fresh Content

Now here's a neat little trick. I used a feed parser and gathered RSS feeds in the categories in the directory. So the feed parser will create posts from the feeds and each post goes to the appropriate directory page. After they've been running for awhile and I get a feel for how often they publish I set the posts to expire. That way there is always fresh content. Because most pages are a combination of a couple of feeds, a number of links, and whatever other content I've fed to the page it is absolutely unique content and always fresh. As the feeds are published automatically, mixed with other feeds and the old ones expired, there will always be totally unique content on the page. Each individual feed is duplicate content but it's actually pretty easy to tell the search engines not to index the individual posts if there is a concern.

More Than Just a Link

Since the directory is web 2.0 enabled it's pretty easy to add more than just tect in a link. Since users can easily upload their own pictures and it's pretty common practice, why not put the capability in the directory. It's easy and makes the link more enticing for the end user ensuring a higher click through rate.

And what would web 2.0 be without a mashup. Just for fun I threw in a google map which will display where all of the websites are based. A user can actually click on points on the map to get to a link. Since this is all new the location information hasn't been added. But over time as it is this will be a much funner feature.

In addition we've added a most clicked through links section. This rewards those webmasters who took the time to make their link more enticing by giving them even more visibility.

And Then The Marketing

Of course it's all about marketing. The link directory was the original marketing for our belt buckle knives. People just stumbled upon them looking for other items and they sold. So we've included a few things to help them take notice. There a small ad which will show a random model on each page refresh. Keeps things fresh as they use the directory. I've done the same for our belt buckles

Also we've embedded the youtube video on the page. Not only does it give the user a quick explanation of what the knife actually is but it increases our views on youtube which helps promote the video there and sends more traffic back to the site.

And then of course a few google ads to make a couple extra bucks. This could be expanded upon easily with other ad networks.

So there's my take on going web 2.0 with a links directory. All done with free scripts and a little knowledge. I'm sure someone out there has more great ideas and I'd sure love to here them. So leave me a comment below and let me know what you think.

Phil