Abrexa_UK - 12:45 pm on Oct 18, 2002 (gmt 0)

From my experience of having done this, you won't make anything from submissions. Our directory was built using exactly the methods discussed here: we took a regional DMOZ dump and modified it to set up initially. Then we started adding sites.

The number of submissions that you will get depends entirely upon whether you charge or not. If you charge anything at all, you will get only a handful of submissions (relatively). We charge as small amount as possible to cover the editor's time in adding sites, yet still get less submissions than we would like.

We did try free submission for a while and had the opposite problem; too many submissions. We were just swamped in a matter of days with endless junk sites.

Fortunately, we are now making enough from the advertising to cover some free submissions for non-commercial sites, which we will introduce in the next few days.

You need to be prepared for the reviewing time as well. It can take anything from 5 to 15 minutes to review a site if you do it properly. Often the submitted information needs to be completely rewritten, or you will need to request more info. Are you going to check for browser compatibility? Secure servers? Privacy policies? The more facets you look for the longer the review will take.

The other issue of course is whether your listing will provide value for money. People investing $ in a listing want to know that they are likely to get some traffic in return. Hence your site will need to have a good amount of traffic, which of course takes time to build. Our site has only really been receiving large numbers of visitors for the last 4 months or so. Prior to that we were struggling to get enough visitors to justify a listing fee.

To sum up:
- you won't make any money from the submissions.
- you need to allow a lot of time for reviewing purposes (at least 5 minutes per site).
- you need a lot of visitors to make it work.