List all or list the best?

[John Scott]

I'm pondering this. Shoyuld a web directory list all relevant sites, or just the best?

I'm leaning towards all. All relevant sites with unique content.

[edbarton]

What is the best is quite often a matter of person opinion and this could draw up problems for the editors. Probably the best idea, would be to list all sites with unique content, or at least it would be imo.

[MadHatter]

What happens when you get 2 sites that have similar content.... like say:
http://www.counter-strike-dl.com
and
http://www.csnation.net

?
Two sites >> Similar content, but both sites have content that are unique to its site.

[John Scott]

It would depend. If there is enough unique content on each site to justify a listing.

[MadHatter]

Well, in my previous example :: CSNation is a very general, and broad CS Site, where as Counter Strike DL focuses on CS Skins (in the downloads page) - with the largest collection of cs 1.6 skins online.
Would that be a good example of 2 sites, with similar, yet unique content where both would get listed?

[stoner3221]

Originally Posted by JohnScott

I'm pondering this. Shoyuld a web directory list all relevant sites, or just the best?

I'm leaning towards all. All relevant sites with unique content.

All relevant sites within specific quality criteria is usually best. Some topics such as pharmaceuticals bring in very high quality big bucks websites and others like musician fan sites will be composed of mostly amateur lower quality, but relevant sites. This is where the editor’s best judgment and knowledge of the topic plays an important roll. It’s really hard to put it into black and white firm guidelines.

[MadHatter]

John, would it be too rash to say something like:
How about only listing PR3+ sites?
I mean, after all... that shows the site's popularity, and then sites need to be good, established, and quality sites to even be considered.
I know it is quite a drastic thought, but PR is a good indicator of alot of things.
And, this would prevent one-page-wonder spam getting listed, or indeed un-established sites.

[John Scott]

How about only listing PR3+ sites?

Um, no. I think editors can review the sites better than Google can.

"BlueFind - Better than Google"

Nice slogan.

[MadHatter]

Yeah I suppose... bad idea, too rash.
But I definately think that quality over quantity is a good idea.

[Thanol]

I think we should list all sites with enough unique content, or else we'll have a bunch of po'ed webmasters on our hands saying we're bias or something.

[Grumpus]

When making cre8asite's directory, our thread about this very discussion ran about 100 or more posts. (I forget, but it was HUGE - and it wasn't open to the general public - only the mods of the forum...)

The trick is not so much in picking whether you select "All" or "Best" but rather in coming up with a definition of "All" or "Best".

Another issue comes in when I have a site that contains good info about widgets. Then John makes a site that has all the same info mine has, plus it's got a whole lot more because it goes into more detail. This means that John's site has plenty of unique content. But, does that mean that my site is no longer unique and should be removed? Maybe - or even probably. But how does that get determined?

And, John didn't copy my site. He just made sure he covered all the bases my site covered. It's all his own words on his site and my own words on my site. Is the fact that the "coverage" is the same enough to make them "not unique"? Or is the fact that the copy is different enough to make the site unique? And, if it's determined that only one of them should be in the directory, which one? The one that was created first? The bigger one? The one that was submitted first?

"Best" is a tough call too as a lot of that determination is subjective.

There are a lot of tough questions in here and it's likely that the answers you guys come up with will be considerably different than the ones we came up with. And your answers will be different than what DMOZ or Yahoo, or whatever other directory came up with. That's what'll make your directory unique.

I definitely agree with John, though - putting a sites's PR or any SEO considerations into whether the site is good enough for the directory is a mistake. A site is either useful or its not. Whether they have backlinks is irrelevant. Even google started out with zero backlinks at one point.

G.

[MadHatter]

Another issue comes in when I have a site that contains good info about widgets. Then John makes a site that has all the same info mine has, plus it's got a whole lot more because it goes into more detail. This means that John's site has plenty of unique content. But, does that mean that my site is no longer unique and should be removed? Maybe - or even probably. But how does that get determined?

Well, just say you review 200 widgets, and John reviews the same 200 widgets, and neither has any other content, wouldnt you list both in this situation (providing they were good quality, useful reviews) because both will highlight different things, and have different opinions, therfore unique.

This is where Categories being very specific is useful, because if john also had a widget forum, and a page with downloads for widgets, and some widget related links, and widget history articles.... then he could go in:
Widgets >> General Widget Sites

But, Yours would go specifically in
Widgets >> Widget Reviews

Thus listing both, and still defining a difference between the two sites.
So, if editors for each category made sure that their category was split into very definite, and specific subcategories, this would allow better listings. Giving users specifically what they want.

[Grumpus]

because both will highlight different things, and have different opinions, therfore unique.

Yup. I would think so. But I'm just saying it's important to spell out exactly what makes things unique. Having gone through this stuff in the past, I can say that it's pretty easy to come to the decision "We'll list all sites that have unique content" but if the definition of "unique" isn't addressed, then each editor will end up with their own idea of what's unique.

---

This is where Categories being very specific is useful,...

And it can also present problems from a user standpoint. As visitors move down into the more specific categories, they are going to come across some with no (or very few listings). If a higher level category has no links in it, my mind wonders if any of the categories below it are going to have any links in it. Moving deeper and deeper and finding nothing or very little, I'm probably going to give up before I get to that "Widget Reviews" category after assuming it's as empty as everything else.

One of the considerations rather needs to be "If I'm going to make a new category - are there 5 pages that I know of that I can put in here?" If not, then that category is going to be a turnoff to anyone who happens to view it. And that negative experience will carry over the next time the consider using a directory.

Be careful about creating cats for the sake of having them. As cats fill up and it starts to be hard to find what you're looking for in it, you'll have a bunch of sites listed. Some of them are going to be along the same "subcategory" and you can create it and then move those sites into it.

Search engines aren't going to like empty cats either. The listings are what contain the "unique" elements of the page. If a search engine finds a lot of empty cats, then a high percentage of the content of those pages are going to be the same (primary navigation, copyright info, and so on). When spiders find pages with high percentages of commonality, they tend to stop going any deeper and will look for places up near the root of the site where there is something substantially unique. If it doesn't find anything, it'll just move onto the next site and try again next month.

---

I'm not trying to tell you guys how to do this, by any means. I'm not even really giving any answers to the questions. My intent is just to help you guys home in on the questions that are going to make the biggest differences in the long run. How you answer them doesn't matter as much as the fact that you asked them and DID come up with an answer to them.

G.

[kwvarga]

list all with best at top

[compar]

Originally Posted by theSpear

list all with best at top

"Best" is a hell of a subjective criteria. I think you would immediately devalue the directory if you try and implement a policy like this.

[thebassman]

I agree with Bob... "best" is so subjective... it would appear as bias right off the bat, and would receive backlash from the majority of the web community who's sites aren't listed or listed at the top, I would assume...

[jadzia]

I think the list all - with a quality of content measure would work well.

I know I hate searching for something and getting tons of sites that are nothing but links sites, trying to get me to go buy viagra, video games, or whatever. Most of the time there is no real content but they came up high in the search results.

The human element to bluefind will thankfully aleviate this.

[SVB]

I think list all aswell. Its the end user who will benefit from the site. What might be the best to you, will be totally irrelevant to them, a site further down might have exactly what they are looking for.

[Ferre]

Interesting tread. Reading through it I found this question popping up, say you have, as in my real excample;

thc-ministry.org (US HQ)
thc-ministry.net (Europe HQ)

they both have about the same content, but then there's a whole lot of similar websites, like this one;

thc-ministry-florida.org

all with similar content too, but specially focused on a specific area and run by different people. How to list this? This will happen with nearly all religious sites, lots of sites with the same content, only a difference in location but all just as important for those who look for a representative website in their area.

Another excample of this I guess are political parties websites. every state has a few of them and they all have the same content. Boy I start to see how complicated it is to build a quality directory.

[altyfc]

With our sites, we try to list ALL that bother to fill the 'add url' form properly (that usually cuts it down to about half of the actual submissions ), so long as they look adequate and aren't full of broken stuff.

Aaron