How To Build Your Own Web Directory

Once upon a time I was an edi­tor in the great Dmoz (Open Direc­tory Project) web direc­tory. I stayed there about ten years as an active edi­tor. Now I am edit­ing in the BOTW direc­tory. I still like adding sites, car­ing for and main­tain­ing a list for a topic I am pas­sion­ate about. How­ever, it is nice to do so with­out any­one else mak­ing up the rules. So, I guess that is how I started the idea of begin­ning my own web direc­tory. Not a huge project like Dmoz or BOTW. I am just going to pick top­ics I like: rural explo­ration, urban explo­ration, his­tor­i­cal places, maybe other things like arts and crafts too. Time will tell. The plan is to begin with rural explo­ration in Ontario, then rural explo­ration in Canada. I plan to start each smaller sec­tion one at a time, until it builds up.

I started mak­ing a list of sites using a Blogspot blog. Then I moved it to Mov­able Type on a domain I picked out. But nei­ther of these options was work­ing well as a soft­ware for build­ing and keep­ing a list. Both were cum­ber­some and messy to work with in this way. I looked at other ideas for link man­age­ment but didn’t find any­thing except book­mark lists. Then I found two plu­g­ins that would work with Word­Press for build­ing a web direc­tory (Direc­tory Press and Web Direc­tory Word­Press Plu­gin) ver­sus a direc­tory of links. There is a difference!

I ended up load­ing the plu­g­ins to have a look at them but the soft­ware I am actu­ally going to try using for the web direc­tory are IndexScript and SKALINKS, both are free­ware. Two dif­fer­ent web direc­tory soft­ware pack­ages. I will let you know how it goes as I get it fig­ured out on my web host and domain. They both look fine in the demos avail­able on their sites.

As I was look­ing for soft­ware I found a few links about build­ing a web direc­tory. They are all geared to peo­ple set­ting it up for get­ting paid sub­mis­sions. That isn’t my plan. I will allow sub­mis­sions but I’m not ask­ing for money. If sub­mis­sions are free then I don’t have to feel I owe any­one a link. I can choose to list them or not based on the con­tent of the site rather than the con­tent they add to my bank account. I think it works bet­ter that way.

Asso­ci­ated Con­tent: Mon­e­tize Your Web­site by Cre­at­ing a Paid Web Directory

Search Engine Opti­miza­tion (SEO) Blog: Some Advice Before Cre­at­ing a Web Directory

SEO Blog: Web Direc­to­ries — Worth Doing Well

Intel­liants: How to Make Your Direc­tory Popular

Intel­liants: How to Mon­e­tize your Directory

Intel­liants: Niche or Gen­eral Direc­tory? Which to Choose?

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