Onlife

It is a shame to say it but directories in search engines come and go like the breeze.

I have found myself in the situation where our directory has passed it's optimal point of search engine domination.

What I believe to be happening is:

1. we reached a nice PageRank of 5
2. we promote our clients well (web links on relevant pages)
3. the clients websites that are much more relevant to a particular subject rather than a broad directory and are being boosted in the search engines for those terms
4. because the directory is not as specific on one area it is being replaced by our clients we are promoting

This means that directories are useful for people in specific fields but will eventually drop into the depths of the search engines with all their clients on top.

I was told early on that "directories come and directories go" and have noticed that you don't see many directories coming up number one or two in search engines. I now believe what those people said and understand why!

We will keep our directory open for those who want targeted back links in this field.

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Rob
www.onlife.com.au - Onlife Lifestyle Directory

jfranktoo

Yes, I can quite see what you mean Onlife. Here is the problem from the other side.

We are in the vacation rental business in a small way in Scotland. With our owners web site we cannot hope to get in the front pages of Google with such a broad search term, against the Travel directories. It is a dog fight for them. They cover the smaller towns and villages too.

So we go heavily for our unique selling proposition, "lochside" cottage, and for our niche market "Glencoe in the Highlands". At this level, independent owner sites dominate because they are heavily optimised for these local terms and the directories can't do that. We get to page one there. But the search term is narrow. The locals know their markets and each market has its own characteristics.

In our market, half of the cottage visitors want to use directories for the ease with which they can compare several sites - but that can be a pain for us. We get a lot of time wasters. They mail a dozen properties without even looking at the details. We don't take part in beauty parades so it is not a good experience for the visitor either. The other half of the visitors want to avoid directories and find the owners' sites themselves. There are two market segments, really.

We rely on directories for about 60% of our business, but this proportion is declining slowly because of our own site efforts. Because we know our local market so well we can optimise easily for it and make it ours.

The market is segmenting as we write. Four years ago, the market was generic, now it is full of little niches and individual site owners can reach those.

I don't know what I'd do if I ran a directory - try and segment as far as possible. Put myself out of business. I think the management-speak experts call it "creative destruction". Grim

I'd like to be more cheerful, really.

John

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Scotland last minute short breaks and special deals, self catering cottages

Self catering cottage in Appin by Glencoe Scotland