JoeAnt spiderable now

[Hbird64]

See for example http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&q=+site:www.joeant.com+joeant

Hugo

[ihelpyou]

Very good! It looks like you need to fix the profile page of each listing as it shows a programming error in the Google description and on the page. Other than that, all is fine. :)

[Hbird64]

Doug,

because the meta's are virtual content, some sites are going to give us that error. Especially super secure ones like msnbc.
And only a few hundred sites are showing now.

Hugo

[Hbird64]

And it looks like all pages are finally spidered, and they will be visible after the dance.
http://www2.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=+site:www.joeant.com+joeant

Hugo

[ihelpyou]

Great job Hugo and JoeAnt! :thumb:

[polarmate]

Sorry if this is a stupid question: Does this mean that a listing in Joeant will be regarded as an iBL by Google?

[dvduval]

Hey, that's great!
I hope you don't mind one critique:
The way Joe Ant is organized makes many of the pages several directories deep. Here is an example:
joeant.com/DIR/cat/835/next/30/10
The impact is the pagerank of the pages in your index are deflated. The JoeAnt Home Page is PR6. Your "about us" page is in the root directory (not deflated) and has a pagerank of 5. Most of your directory listings are 3 or more levels deep and have a pagerank between 0 and 3. Your links that are directly from the homepage seem to be holding at 4, but sub directories of these pages are less.

[JoeAnt]

Didn't recognize you without your shades. :) j/j

Any suggestion on how to improve this?
We can't have all of them link from the index page and a navigational page with 50,000+ links might be overkill.

I thought we were fortunate enough to even have them spidered. Some do not allow the spiders to go past the 1st page of results in a specific category.


Polarmate,

I can't answer that. I've seen different situations where they seem to count and others that do not. I believe we still need to increase our popularity and a few other things before all listings will be considered IBL.

[Phoenix]

The decrease in PR is the same in other directories. I think this should be offset some as JoeAnt increases it's listings (assuming more quality content = higher overall PR).

Regardless of the PR of the page that links to a site, there is still the benefit that the site will be found when our directory is spidered. As Jerry pointed out, this goes for sites that are two or more pages deep in a topic, not just the ones on the first page. This way a newer site that doesn't have its content as fully developed (and hence has a lower rating in our directory) will have as good a chance of being found as an older site that has had more time to develop the content and fine tune things. (I'm not trying to imply that older sites will always rate higher than new ones...just that often sites that are well maintained tend to improve with time and as a result earn a higher rating.)

Mary Beth

[Dan0]

The toolbar PR drops by one, for every level deeper that you go into the site, but that's not how *real* PageRank works.

All directories have this "problem," if you want to call it that. You've got 50 links on page one, 50 links on the next page down, 50 links on that one, which might be where your listing is.

PageRank is incredibly diluted by the time it goes out to your page anyway, even from Yahoo and ODP.

[Alan Perkins]

Originally posted by polarmate
Does this mean that a listing in Joeant will be regarded as an iBL by GoogleYes it is, as long as the JoeAnt page you are listed on is indexed by Google.Originally posted by JoeAnt
Any suggestion on how to improve this?It's fine as it is. :cool:

[Phoenix]

DanO, does it make a difference that we show a maximum of 10 results per page or is it the number of links in the topic itself that counts? Which would be better for a site owner, to be listed in a larger topic with many entries or in the immediate subtopic with only a few specific entries? (As far as Google is concerned.) Does it differentiate between external and internal links (links to sites vs. links to subtopics)?

Personally, I think that as far as a directory user is concerned, it's easier to find what you want if there is a specific subtopic (when applicable) for it rather than being lost in all the entries of a more general topic.

Ease of use for our visitors is the first thing I have in mind when I add subs or rework a topic but I want to keep a balance so that the design is as beneficial to site owners as possible. Any input would be appreciated.

MB

[Alan Perkins]

Hi PhoenixOriginally posted by Phoenix
DanO, does it make a difference that we show a maximum of 10 results per page or is it the number of links in the topic itself that counts? Which would be better for a site owner, to be listed in a larger topic with many entries or in the immediate subtopic with only a few specific entries? (As far as Google is concerned.)The best approach is to forget Google and just organise the directory so that visitors can find what they're looking for, via drilldowns, as effortlessly as possible. Google rewards this kind of behaviour in lots of ways and PageRank reflects many of them. But good PageRank should be the effect, not the cause, of your efforts.Originally posted by Phoenix
Does it differentiate between external and internal links (links to sites vs. links to subtopics)?No.

[Phoenix]

Thanks Alan.

Mary Beth

[Dan0]

Darned right, Alan. Search engine marketers are NOT your customers, Phoenix. If your navigation makes sense for users, they will tell others, more folks will link to JoeAnt, and that's the best thing for everyone involved.

All I was pointing out was that directories just don't transfer a huge amount of PageRank to the sites listed in them, because that's the way PageRank works. Even Yahoo and Open Directory, which have tremendous numbers of incoming links, don't "move the needle" all that much.

[Advisor]

Regarding directory links and PageRank, it is often thought that links from major directories may count more towards your PageRank than other links, and might be given some manual boost.

This would make sense, because Google knows that the directories have human editors that are careful with what they list. Of course, this wasn't/isn't always true when there's money involved, such as at Yahoo, but in theory it makes sense.

Jill

[Phoenix]

I know visitors to the site are my priority. Not just in the layout of the topics, but in chosing which sites to add. At the same time, it's nice when owners of quality sites are pleased with the placement of their listing.

I haven't gotten any complaints yet, but I remember that at Go.com, some site owners would complain if their site was listed in a subtopic rather than in the main topic even though the sub was the most appropriate place for it. I guess what I was really looking for was the ability to reply, if there were any such complaints, that it is better for them to be listed in a sub with fewer links on the page than in a main topic where there are many links. Explaining to them that the directory is for the benefit of the enduser doesn't usually appease the type who complains.

Perhaps instead of trying to be nice to those people, I should stick with what comes more naturally (grrrr) and tell them that if they don't like their placement, I can always just delete the entry. :)

Mary Beth

[Dan0]

My canned response would be something like "Thank you for your recent message explaining that you know more about running a directory than we do. Our editor has evaluated your site and determined that it does not meet the criteria for listing in (category). Sites listed in (category) represent the most comprehensive resources on (category). Feel free to resubmit to this category when your website is better able to meet the criteria."

Or maybe you could drop the first sentence. ;) I wish my website could be the only one listed under "Computers and Internet." That would be cool. I'd get a lot of visitors to my home page, who would promptly leave. On the other hand, maybe targeting is better. Do you have any stats on click-through rates? I'd bet that more of the visitors to the narrow categories actually clicks on a link, than they do on the general categories.

[Phoenix]

That's an excellent response and I particularly liked the first sentence. :)

I don't have any stats now on click throughs. Jerry keeps changing the tracking so I that I can't keep up with what reports are available now...are programmers ever satisfied??? Right now though, he's working on tweaking some of the editors' tools so anything more than the most basic stats will have to wait.

Mary Beth

[Dan0]

Mary Beth:

The real value in the directory listing *should* be referrals. I may not be a typical user, but when I go into a directory, I'm trying to drill down and find something in particular, that may not come up on the search engines.

I don't usually stop off at the "general" categories, I keep on going until I get to the section I want. Probably 90% of the time, I find it at the very bottom of the directory structure.

As an example, I was trying to help someone put together an RSS headline feed for their site, and I wanted tutorials, examples, etc. I tried a half dozen queries on Google and Lycos, but only got one semi-useful result. I went into the Open Directory, found the appropriate sub-category, and there were dozens of useful resources in there. If any of them had been listed one category up, I wouldn't have ever found them. If you do a good job for the users, the sites that are listed benefit as well.

[Phoenix]

Same here, I drill down until I get to the sub I want and then start looking at the sites. I would like to think most people do it that way but it's hard to believe when I see what "average users" search for. (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5631) :eek:

I keep trying to convince myself that when they search for "google" that just maybe they want information about google and not the site itself. Then again, I still believe in Santa Claus.

Maybe we need a FAQ for visitors telling them the best ways to find the sites they want. We already try to make it a bit easier with the "related" link, but that may need explaining to new visitors too.

MB

[Dan0]

Yeah, like quicklinks to Google, Yahoo, Hotmail next to the search button. ;-D

You know, some o' that may be leftover from Microsoft's relationship with RealNames. Type Hotmail into the address box on IE, and it takes you to Hotmail, but that's still a search.