Maxnpaddy - 7:36 pm on Jul 31, 2007 (gmt 0)

The problem with "user-suggested categories" is you'll just get folks choosing categories that fit THEIR site keywords, which isn't very helpful for the rest of your advertisers. This will make a directory look messy, and invite the general population instead of anything targeted.

Once this reaches mass promotion, a directory will become uncontrollable to manage with all the untargeted stuff, and doomed from then on. I don't know how they do this, but am amazed that dmoz hasn't become a total mess of mixed and spam results pages, due to the many categories they have.

I haven't attempted what you are doing, and that's only because of the sheer work load that surely awaits trying to get these directories filled. Many directories fail through lack of finance and motivation, the will-power to keep plugging away and lack of cashflow are the least of your problems.

Getting this filled is the hardest battle to win, and will be wasted if you pick the wrong directory area. I know someone that runs a search engine (like Google) and it started off life as a directory, so know what he went through to build it up.

Good luck.