Hosting a Niche Directory on your Site
-
I'm keen to hear feedback from anyone who has installed a directory onto their e-commerce site.
By directory, I mean that - subject to human review and possibly a small fee - a relevant site owner in my niche can create a listing that is effectively a page on my site where they control the main content, links & images.
People using our site would enter the directory section from our resources / advice top level category and browse the index of the directory to reach a listed site's dedicated page.The idea for it came up when we were discussing ways to get more backlinks. Offering people a whole page directory listing seems like a good way of negotiating a link in return that isn't just from the other site's link page.
I'm looking for everyone's stories on this: your reasons for doing it, how you went about it and the tools you used and what your results where, in particular: was it worth it?
We aren't thinking about starting a new site for the directory, it would be added onto our main site (which is old and has good PR etc etc). However, it would still be good to hear from both sides of the fence on that issue.
Over to you.
J
-
Hi! We're going through some of the older unanswered questions and seeing if people still have questions or if they've gone ahead and implemented something and have any lessons to share with us. Can you give an update, or mark your question as answered?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Eric,
Speed is also one of our priorities and I'd be delighted to have good reason to buy some more server vrooom.
The charge for a listing idea was just being thorough, I doubt we really will, after all, we want backlinks. Affiliate links are a better of raising some nice lunch money.
You're spot on about the niche relevancy & user experience - we hope the directory will be popular, judging by all the calls we get about related products that we don't sell!
Was your site selling any / many products? Was there some clever tracking going on around people who left the site through the directory?
J
-
I have a some experience in this. I added a directory package to an already up-and-running site, utilizing eDirectory (http://www.edirectory.com/) and we kept it on the same domain (ex: directory.example.com). Overall, aside from a few hick-ups, the installation and implementation went well, and search engines are crawling the directory. The tough part is to make sure that your template on the edirectory, matches your site. This was easy with navigation and not so easy with banner ads, but we eventually got it looking good. Depending on the size of your site, expectations of your directory and resources, you may want to consider diversifying the hosting of the directory onto separate (virtual) machines, but that's of course up to you.
The one thing I did want to mention is that when creating a directory, especially if you're considering charging for ANY aspect of it, is thinking of it from a visitor prospective. Why would I want to pay (or spend time uploading to) a directory to host info/images/etc I could do elsewhere, or am already doing elsewhere? Having a niche site might negate that question, tho. Good luck!
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How do you find Affiliate Links on your site that have not been nofollowed?
We've just signed up to an affiliate scheme because we were sending links to them because we thought their product was valuable to our users. So we now have to go through and nofollow all of these links over 100's of pages. Is there any way that do a crawl of the site to identify all links to a particular site and tell me what page they are on and whether they are nofollow/follow?
Affiliate Marketing | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
SEO expert for site
Hey guys, I am looking for an SEO expert for my website. I have talked to a couple different people, but since I know nothing about it, it is hard for me to get a good read on whether they know what they are talking about or not. The main keywords are in the sports betting industry, which I believe to be a highly competitive space. Any advice, suggestions, or recommendations? Thank you
Affiliate Marketing | | MachinesPicks0 -
New site started doing well, now it's tanking
Im confused by activity from a site I opened less than a month ago. I ranked in the top ten for the local version of my primary phrase. Within two weeks I was up to number two. I created a few new pages without content in order to build age. I also paid for a pair of clearly marked classified ads at trusted sites thatprovide traffic from potential clients. Next, I stated revamping my pages by revising and editing content. my site has dropped like a brick. My content is the best it's been and improving daily. Im not sure what to do. Should I start over? Do I keep improving my site and give it a few months? Would anyone be willing to review my site and provide a few tips? Fyi, I understand some of my pages need more content. my formatting is a mess with iOS 7 on iPad.
Affiliate Marketing | | youngmaster0 -
Why were all of my Amazon sites deindexed?
March 22nd.. The worst day of my Internet Marketing career. I got the dreaded message: Dear site owner or webmaster of http://www.ricecookerreviewz.com/ We've detected that some of your site's pages may be using techniques that are outside Google's Webmaster Guidelines. If you have any questions about how to resolve this issue, please see our Webmaster Help Forum for support. Here's some interesting points: All of the content is unique and highly targeted to each product. Site is around 4-5 months old Every single one of my Amazon sites were hit.. How did they connect my sites together..? Why were they hit? List of some of my deindexed sites: http://www.inversiontablereviewshq.net/ http://www.breadmachinereviewshq.net/ http://www.ricecookerreviewz.com/ http://www.cooker-reviews.com/ http://www.ab-machine-reviews.net/ They are most definitely not, "thin affiliate sites". They have dozens of reviews, tons of articles, recipes, video.. Each site is like this.. I have started over, fresh content from my writers, fresh theme, fresh everything. But still, I would appreciate an answer as to what I'm doing wrong so that I can learn to not make the same mistake. Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | leetk3zzer0 -
How do the engines look at pages populated using content from an affiliate site?
We are building out a section of our site using an affiliate partnership in the travel space. How would you suggest organizing the content so we do not get penalized for duplicate content? Do you suggest not suing the content at all?
Affiliate Marketing | | TSDigital0 -
Google Analytics Tracking Pixels for Third-Party sites???
Hello, Does anyone know if it is possible to track an event on a third party site and have it post back to your Google Analytics account? For example, I am sending traffic to a partners site and I want to know if that traffic I am sending them will hit a specific point of conversion (a sale) and I'm wondering if it possible to place a tracking pixel on their thankyou.html page that gets recorded in my google analytics?
Affiliate Marketing | | shawn810 -
New site setup questions
Working with a law firm with a well-established website that wants to build a separate website for their affiliate title insurance company. Currently, they only mention this company (and list a phone number) on their Real Estate page under Practice Areas. Although the affiliate company doesn't have a website, their location and phone number are listed in tons of local business directories. I'm currently working on a law firm site that was just built, and the process of getting that one listed in all the directories has been time consuming, so I'm guessing this new site will be much easier, since all I'll have to do is claim ownership of the current listings so I can add a link to the new website (and add additional info to make the profile complete). Would I be correct in assuming this will be a much easier link campaign? As for new site setup questions, they will obviously get some strong links coming from the existing law firm site. Should they host this new site on a different server so the SE's give more power to the law firm links? Is there really a value to reserving the new domain for 3+ years right off the bat? Any other suggestions welcome. Thanks.
Affiliate Marketing | | c2g0 -
Shopping comparison site referral traffic growth
Over the last 12 months we have been working with affiliates and seen excellent traffic and revenue growth from this channel (golf market). Over the same period we have seen a massive (60%) drop in organic traffic and 40% drop in organic revenue. Our rankings are comparable to last year. However we are seeing growth in Googlebase traffic and direct traffic Is it the case that consumers are using comparison sites more that organic search queries. Is there any evidence to support this view if true? Having content on affiliate sites, could it be harming us organically (but as I say or rankings are comparable to last year - maybe a little worse since Panda updates). Confused? I am...
Affiliate Marketing | | cpdigital10