netcommr - 1:46 am on Nov 17, 2001 (gmt 0)

I read through most of the links listed, but did not see Liane's thread mentioned. Which thread was that?? ...when niche portals/vortals are mentioned, I want to read it.

This may be an old thread, but still a good one. I'll see if maybe a few questions come up from this stuff. Many know who I am associated with, most do not, so I'll just mention I am in the "companies with products" category. (hosting/software provider) If this gets into a real specific discussion, I can always pass questions on to portal owners if it does not get answered here. As of today we are up to 3,203 of them hosted now.

I would like to just pass on a couple things about portals from several different positions.

1. From a position of a web site owner looking to promote a my site...

Topic specific/niche sites with directories and smaller portals are where I start looking for links even before I submit to search engines. As most of the big SE's have gone to links relationship to rank sites, these seem to be the biggest source of getting some link pop quickly with low or no cost.

These smaller directories many times bring some very high quality traffic to the site early. This gives me a quick view of how my site will function with the right traffic and I can quickly fine tune structures/wording/paths so when the traffic does start to show up in quantity, I know I'm ready for it.

When submitting to these smaller directories, I have a file of titles/descriptions I use and will use many different combinations depending on the categories available, the type of site it is, and to spread different combos around. The different combinations gives me the ability to see what works good together, either to pre-qualify my visitors better or just get more hits. Plus, it puts a larger number of 'keywords' in links pointing to my site.

2. From a serfer point of view.

Depending on your market, you may have an experienced web serfer group visiting your site. If you do, I would not use ODP data. They have seen it a hundred times and they are looking for something new (IE, their not impressed). In this instance you need to do the work and properly build your own data for a directory. If you have just the average internet novice type of traffic, you can use just about anything and they will think your a genious.

You had better have a search feature or I am going to your competitor. If I can't search within sub-categories, I am frustrated but I'll at least try it.

Some applications give you many abilities to add supporting data with descriptions in the listings, such as submitted data, rate/vote links, etc... Keep these to just what is needed, don't clutter your listings with a bunch of stuff unless you have to. I hate waiting... affiliate graphic links many times will slow your pages down if servered from the remote server. This compounded by the search process can make a directory unusable.

Keep it simple and remember I am looking for unique content.

3. From a portal owner's view.

You will have a greater respect for Yahoo, Dmoz, Looksmart, and others after a few months, trust me.

Maintenance!!! If you have never had the pleasure of checking a directory for 404's, get ready for it, and do it often. If you allow submissions then you have to review them. I would not suggest allowing any submission to pass without at least a quick review. You will be amazed at what spammers will do. Get ready for requests for title/description changes, category suggestions, the standard 'I hate you and the site you first visited' emails from rejected links.

Automate everything you can, such as STATIC page generation, link rot(404) checking, algo rotation/tweaks, submission/rejection emails, targeted web crawling, etc...

Study this page:
[searchengineworld.com...]
..live it, learn it, luv it.
This is the only place I have seen this explained properly, well done Brett (just found it couple weeks ago, when was it written?). I stumbled upon this pyramid thing a couple years ago when I was building Yahoo Stores for people, then Google hit the market and all these sites hit the top of the charts, a little study and common sense led to exactly what is explained on that page. Yes, building a theme-pyramid and proper link stucture is the sercret to 'hub' status. ( why did he make it public... ;) )

On sub-sub-pages, you know the ones targeting those specific terms, use your keyword phrase ONLY in all the common places, such as title of the page, heading of the page, in description, in a paragragh early in the page, in link text on the page, in link on parent page, etc... Get creative with keywords used, but study to see which ones work. On dead terms that don't work, keep the page just add more. Never replace a bad keyword page, just move links...

Each sub-directory may give you another link to submit to other places if the content is different enough. And don't forget, category names are great for keywords just as well as the page names.

4. From the server side of things.

Don't run dynamic, publish your directory to static pages always. If your software can't do that, get new software.

Have a fast hard drive and lots of memory. You will be amazed at how many more page views a directory/search engine user will go through compared to other type of sites. They search many different combos, they play, sometimes they try to break your search, and yes they will search for porn no matter what your site is.

**TIP: study your search logs!! you will be given some real juicy phrases you never thought of.

Few things to consider about ODP data.

Yes it is the easiest DB to get a hold of, but just remember we have way too many of them out there. If you are just putting a directory up to get hub status for ranking, then use whatever is easy to do, but if you expect visitors to use it, I would suggest you forget ODP data and do the work yourself. You can't compete with the big boys when you have the same product they do, be better! ODP is a place to get some data to start, but don't settle for it. I am not down on ODP. I think it is a great resource, just over used.

Thousands of sites constantly hit dmoz.com parsing the ODP site live to serve to their own page or DB. Such as a small script that just grabs dmoz.com pages and strips the results out and places them in your container page. This has put a major strain on the ODP servers and has cost them editors/staff from the overhead cost. This in turn cost the web the quality and data lost from this loss of persons. Don't use a program which accesses a site like that, do it the right way ok, get the ODP dump.

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For those that are serious about respect in their field and get noticed by the press, yes a properly implemented portal can do wonders. I'm not just talking about putting up a searchable directory, more is needed to be a portal. But, for those that have implemented all the tools and have built a true vertical portal, it will get noticed more quickly than most other site strutures.

...so what is a portal. Think of every source of information/product/service in a specific field. What type of data/news/content feeds are available, what type of services/tools, what can you develope/write... put all this under one roof, then you have a portal. (get creative)

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paynt... I think 40 per page is a little too high, I have found 20-30 in a better range. Though many variables in that one, your linkage may differ.

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Portals are here for the long term. Many things in the near future in this area. Yes, localized content will be a massive movement very soon. Global advertising has hit botton and will not recover very soon, local is where it is at. The business model follows the profit...