Forum Moderators: phranque
But work is still in the first phase, and I have a small question.
1) What category structure shall I use? (I am using a directory software, so the output will be something like DMOZ, Yahoo type category)
1)
Denominations
>States
>>Cities
>>>Churches
Or
2)
States
>Cities
>>Denominations
>>>Churches
No matter what way I go, I will be building large number of categories. So I would like to make sure that I am not making any mistake.
What browsing style would you prefer ?
Vishal
The thought of using canonicals comes to mind with this, it might be a useful concept for something this complex, to simplify the navigation. We have a resident expert on the subject, I'll send a StickyMail with the URL to this thread to see if there's a good strategy for you.
I always make my most important theme the top of the heap so it depends on what your point is.
In ODP for example, there are regional sections of the directory that are all about region so it of course makes sense to lead with the particular country or state.
If you are talking churches here then that would seem to be your most important theme and would lend me to believe that's the place to start. I would use denominations as the lead, break into regions and then list the individual church. It’s less about the region this way and more about the denomination. The nature of the structure puts the churches at the bottom either way.
Question: Are you presenting Christian Churches or places of worship for different religions?
I hope you’re adding a good site search feature.
That seems the most logical to me.
1. someone has moved to or is visiting a city and wants to go to the closest ABC church there. = city -> denomination -> church
2. someone has moved to or is visiting a city and just wants to find out what churches are available in that ciry. = city -> churches
3. someone is travelling around the country, or countries, and wants to attend services at the local ABC church wherever possible. = denomination -> country -> city -> church
4. someone attended the ABC church whilst out of town on holidays and wants to find a similar church nearby their home = church -> denomination -> city
and so on.
I think you have to be database driven and have multiple vertical paths available with horizontal linking all over the place, which should not be too hard to do with some careful thought and preperation.
Onya
Woz
(edited by: Woz at 5:05 pm (utc) on Feb. 25, 2002)
Why do people search, to find something local, or when they're visiting? Like would someone look for Los Angeles Baptist Churches or Baptist Churches in Los Angeles? Plural or single variation?
If it isn't denomination specific, would they look up Los Angeles churches or churches in Los Angeles reversing the words? Then they might want Christian churches in Los Angeles - or evangelical churches or full gospel, pentecostal or charismatic churches, of which there are many that don't even fit in with denominations.
Church of the Harvest in LA is not listed as a denomination neither is the Faith Dome or a few others that are also huge. They wouldn't be found under denominational categories, so you have to account for that; those are huge. People are not as likely to search for non-denominational (with or without hyphen) or interdenominational. And people wouldn't all look for denominations like Foursquare or Assemhly of God, they'll look for a word faith church, or one of the other generic terms - particularly full gospel.
Then with Baptist there's American Baptist, Southern Baptist, some western conference, all different flavors. There are technically many different denominations called Baptist, and some are independent and don't even belong to a denominatinal structure.
This is so broad in scope it's probably best to thoroughly study how people search and what the options are before committing to a set navigation. A good portion of people will never look for a denomination, some thoroughly dislike the whole concept of denominational divisions and would never go near one.
I've looked in ODP a bit and the way it's set up would not be remotely useful for anyone I personally know who was researching what was in another city, say if they were thinking of relocating. Outside of major denominations, denominational categores aren't worth much, and vast numbers of people do not belong to those. It takes clicking on each one and going through the site to know, with the way ODP has it.
That whole part of the directory would need to be restructured to really be useful - and it's amazingly bare. They must not even be considering taking in new editors for ages and ages now. I bet if I volunteered for Los Angeles I would never even hear back about it - it wouldn't surprise me at all. So there is definitely a need for some resource that's better organized. There are many such sites around, but they're scattered and too denominational in scope.
I'm familiar with the company in the adwords on the right - THEY know what terms to advertise under. They sell strictly full gospel books - it takes studing the terminology a wee bit to make it even more useful for searchers. It's evidently something very lacking in general in this search. NO help for people searching here either:
[google.com...]
Not at all Google's fault, some webmasters just don't know how to get themselves found.
The thought of using canonicals comes to mind with this, it might be a useful concept for something this complex, to simplify the navigation.
Lets see, 50 states and I have list of denominations (DMOZ has 61, Yahoo has 127 (some international too, but within USA) ). I am still in the process of getting the list of All the cities in USA. I am done with only 16 states and have found 15000 + cities (I am not just using major cities, because Church are present in USA pratically even in every tiny cities too - or am I wrong?).
I would use denominations as the lead, break into regions and then list the individual church.
Q: Are you presenting Christian Churches or places of worship for different religions?
A: I am making a list of all the Christian Churches. And if given opportunity, will also expand this list to World Wide list.
I hope you’re adding a good site search feature.
What is that ??
Just kidding! Oh Yeah, I got that covered. As a matter of fact, I am getting totally new software/script/program created for this directory.
States
>Cities
>>Denominations
>>>Churches
That seems the most logical to me.
rcjordan do you live in Oklahoma ? I mean, most people here in Oklahoma (whom I asked this Q? ) answered same as above.
The question is not how should the data be organised, rather how would people like to find a church.
I think you have to be database driven and have multiple vertical paths available with horizontal linking all over the place, which should not be too hard to do with some careful thought and preperation.
maybe you should brainstorm a list to test at Overture's keyword selection tool
1) What structure would a person like to use after coming on the web site?
2) Suppose if I use State -> City -> Denomination -> Churches. And if someone from Texas is looking for baptist church, then there are chances that baptist church from category of California might be ranked higher than one of Texas. Now would this be a drawback of the directory or positive side ? Would the visitor continue browsing and will try to look for Texas -> City -> category or will leave.
3) Suppose if I use Denomination -> State -> City -> Churches, above problem can still occur. But this structure is best for people looking for specific Denomination Churches while traveling or some other purpose. Also what about those people who are not strict Baptist and who are looking for non-denominational church in their neighbourhood - this method would be one they would hate most.
From what I've seen of the US, the smaller towns often have a much larger per capita chruch presence than large cities, when it comes to Christian denominations. If you're talking about non-Christian religions, it seems to be the other way around.
I would say offer two prominent search options right on your front page:
Search By Location
Search By Denomination
Next to all your search boxes, give those two options as radio-button selections, so that people are basically required to use one search option or another.
Then make sure your back end information is structured to handle either search method. <added>From what I've seen when setting up searchable, database driven shopping carts, if each entry for each church has "city" "state" and "denomination" as attribute fields, it would be very easy to se up a search results template that would take denomination searches, and sort the results alphabetically by state, and take location searches and sort results alphabetically by denomination.</added>
"Word Faith" is not a denomination formally, yet it very much is in practical reality. That's Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Jerry Savelle - that whole bunch, and they're all over. The conventions are totally packed out, every one of them worldwide. Faith Dome (Fred Price) is one of the largest, in LA. EV Hill is Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, yet another type of Baptist denomination. On it goes. Church at Rocky Peak is halfway between the Valley in LA and Simi Valley - enormous, not a denomination or in any way that can be categorized.
There are a kazillion independents around here that fall under no category except that they're local. Oklahoma is a different story - the saying goes that if you can't make it to Heaven, at least make it to Tulsa, it's the stop before. It might be worth checking yellow pages out for some cities at random.
There are enough denominations out there though that it would be a useful feature for many searchers... You could also have categories under denomination like "Independent" "Regional" "Revivalist" "Evangelical" and other non-denominational but nonetheless categorizable groups.
Of course, there's always "Other" for those that remain really stubbornly independent... ;)
But having a search-by-location option would be a necessity on the site, for sure. Including a search by church name wouldn't be a bad idea either...
There's a state for every state, but there isn't a denomination for every church or type of church.
Suppose If I were to think that every city as at least 1 church for every denomination, than the calculation of churches would be as below.
127 denominations
51 States
750 Cities in each State [suppose an average number]
2 Churches in Every City
<=> 10,858,500
But above figure is not a reality. Becuase at the end, there will be only handful denominations that will be having maximum number of churches (and only one with top # of churches).
However, I do believe that every state will be having atleast 1 church for every denomination.
It might be worth checking yellow pages out for some cities at random.
Two Directories.
1) Denominations -> States ->> Cities ->>> Churches
and
2) States -> Cities ->> Denominations ->>> Churches
But I will be adding some helpful links to interface to make browsing easy. For example:
Jon Doe is browing on page
Baptist Churches -> Oklahoma -> Oklahoma City -> Churches
At the bottom of the Page or Left hand side of page there will be a links.
1) Other denominational Churches in Oklahoma City
------------
By the way, I also plan to add one more category that I believe will be pretty big - Non-Denominational Churches
But having a search-by-location option would be a necessity on the site, for sure. Including a search by church name wouldn't be a bad idea either...
I also plan to include advanced search option, where I also plan to use the option search by zip code, city, state, Denomination, denomination only in xyz, city,state.....
