Web & Design Optimization - Blare Your Presence!

Top Sites Cat

Doug Peters — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:11:00 GMT

We have been so busy this year that it is ridiculous. Our promotion of Syd's Eastside Auto Parts has been going very well. Syd's Eastside Auto has even expanded our duties, having us promote an autos and automotive blog, an automotive search engine, a couple of Google Groups, expanding its original SydsAutoParts.com website drastically, and we are even about to design a new website around Syd's Eastside Auto Parts' new found role as an authorized dealer and distributor of IPD aftermarket Cat diesel engine parts.

We have been so busy that we haven't been able to stop and tell anyone about all the little improvements we have been making to other sites and directories, or to report our concerned effort to approve as many websites as possible in these directories and in our search engines. Certainly, our volunteer editors and support is greatly appreciated so that we can offer you the very best opportunities to promote your personal, professional or business online presence.

That said, we are taking a break this Easter weekend to setup our TopSitesCat.com site. Top Sites Catalog is intended to be a spot that will allow members to see how well they rank in the catalog. Plus, it is a decent listing service affording you a direct link back to your website from the catalog. Members posting their link will also be viewed by others visiting the Top Sites Catalog as potential reciprocate link partners to exchange links with.

While we are only starting this new site, we expect Top Sites Cat to grow and offer promotion opportunities not available everywhere else that will benefit our member websites.

You are welcome to check out Top Sites Catalog using the link below, Happy Easter!...

Announcing Turkoc: A G-Rated General Subject English Web Directory

Doug Peters — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 01:03:00 GMT

Announcing the Turkoc Web Directory!

Turkoc went live on Monday, November 6th, 2006. Turkoc is a G-rated, general subject, English language web directory indexing quality websites. It is also a new experiment in a web directory for us, as it utilizes the Site Sift Listings software engine. Right now, the script looks interesting and offers some nice features, although I could certainly use a few more that I am used to.

Of course, as with anything new, we are still checking it out. Turkoc will remain a Site Sift Listings directory and if we like this new software, especially as it matures, its database may well be used to spawn other directories in our network of websites.

Take care, All! -Doug

Turkoc Web Directory
G-rated, general subject, English language web directory offering quality websites.

New Regional Business Listings Directory for the Sioux Empire

Doug Peters — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 06:42:00 GMT

The Sioux-Empire.com has just been upgraded to a full blown regional resource locator and listings directory.

Sioux-Empire.com went live today at 9:00 AM Central Time. With the emphasis on local community search, Domain Hostmaster has sponsored this new local area search engine and regional directory to offer its own community an inexpensive alternative to the outrageous rates being charged by other area local directories without any actual traffic to send advertisers.

I was astonished when Yahoo started charging $299.00 for a directory listing. To me, that's quite a tough sell, and Yahoo has millions of visitors. But when a local directory which doesn't even offer a search engine optimized directory and has almost no traffic of any significance offered to sell me a listing on its poorly designed site for over $450.00 per year, I realized that there are now rip-off artists on the local scene trying to seperate good Sioux Empire citizens from their hard-earned cash. Unfortunately, some are actually falling for this highway robbery, as many are not well educated about the web and internet advertising rates.

The truth is that $50.00 per year is extortion unless the website that you are going to be advertising on can prove that your listing will be displayed in front of at least a million people in the same time frame. Part of the reason is that unless you are listed first, or at least in the top five, your link is pretty much worthless.

To further complicate things, links have to be built just right in order for them to even mean anything to any of the search engines that crawl websites tabulating links as votes. The reason is that, because links which point back to databases (instead of the actual site, usually as a lazy programming method of keeping track of the click-throughs to an advertiser's website) are absolutely worthless. In fact, Google had an extremely serious problem that allowed such linking methods that generated a 301 error to steal traffic from the website that it was linked to. Only this year, when a whole new Googlebot showed up and started crawling pages built on the Mozilla FireFox browser engine, was this serious error finally put to bed. That is, IF there are no remnants of the old GoogleBot crawler in action, which is built on the ancient text-based browser, Lynx.

On top of this, some webmasters attach the "nofollow" tag to link anchor tags, and Google has verified that it will not take such links into account, and will not tally such links as a vote for a site.

Now, throw into this mix the fact that a text link is always better than a banner link. Why? Because search engines can't read the contents of a graphic. They can read text because they can monitor the keystrokes that textual content is built on. But it will be some time before Google will be able to read images, Flash animations or video. While we fully expect Google and Yahoo to utilize implementions of new standards for video coding technologies to describe scenes or shots, this type of technology has to incorporated into the actual video in order to be useful. We already enjoy such technology for images with the ALT property of the IMG tag in HTML, but this tag has already been degraded by dishonest use due to spammers stuffing the tag with keywords.

Fortunately, almost all of the directories I run (Reciprocate Links!, Worthful.Info, Dir.SiouxFalls-SD.com, Sioux-Empire.com, httpmaster & Worldwide Host Info) are completely search engine optimized and reward listing submitters who go the extra mile to list their services with me. There is another old one that I am still working on which is very powerful which I will be posting about here in my SEO blog soon, too. As soon as its ready for prime-time. But these others are, now, and well worth the investment or effort required to be listed. In fact, I guarantee it!

But this brings the post full circle. This is why I have established the Sioux-Empire.com Regional Directory, to give good, honest businessmen and businesswomen a fair and honest means of extending their market reach with affordable online advertising that won't put them, or their business, in the poor house. Furthermore, this type of reasonable advertising is actually quite common, and there is no reason that the Sioux Empire should suffer at the hands of these internet highwaymen.

And this is the very reason that Domain Hostmaster is sponsoring this directory, as well, to deliver quality services at a great price-point in order to do an honest business with good people. And, to give something back to its own community, as well.

Sioux-Empire.com
Search engine crawler friendly, keyword optimized, family oriented regional business directory serving the city of Sioux Falls and the surrounding Sioux Empire area in southeastern South Dakota. The Sioux Empire Regional Resource Directory only accepts quality website submissions which clearly define a purpose that is relevant to the regional community and then follows through on that promise.

It's about time! -Doug

Sioux Falls, SD Enjoys a new Web Directory

Doug Peters — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 06:14:00 GMT

Sioux Falls Directory is a quality, general subject, general audience, regional English lanuage web directory for everyone of all ages interested in the South Dakota region. The Sioux Falls Directory's primary focus is on the southeastern South Dakota area, the city of Sioux Falls, the surrounding Sioux Empire community and the neighboring vicinities. Sioux Falls Directory does not accept listings that are unsuitable for any age group.

Sioux Falls Directory offers free listings to the regional area. Websites listed for free must display an address within the city of Sioux Falls, or the surrounding Sioux Empire. All listing records are valid for the life of the original hyperlink submission resource.

The Sioux Falls Directory is a great addition to an already viable community website at SiouxFalls-SD.com. Thius is a free community website offering forums, games, photo/image sharing and downloadable files.

The Sioux Falls Directory only accepts quality website submissions which clearly define a purpose and follow through on that promise. If you have such a regional resource, you are encouraged to list your site. If you have a resource that isn't oriented to the Sioux Empire region but would be of interest to the local community, you are encouraged to purchase a one-time charged inexpensive one-way link.

Sioux Falls Directory
A search engine ready, spider friendly, keyword categorized, searchable G-rated general subject English language regional web directory.

New Family Resources Directory: Worthful.Info

Doug Peters — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 00:49:00 GMT

We are pleased to be able to announce yet another new resource for webmasters to use to help build up their links. Worthful.Info is now live and available to promote family freindly, kid safe resource websites. Submission options include free listings, reciprocate listings and (paid annual) featured listings.

Reciprocating links are treated the same as free regular links and sorted according to PR (Google's "PageRank"). Featured links are sorted acording to the eldest first principle. No links will have a "nofollow" attribute added to their anchor tag (link), as Worthful.Info is a free family oriented quality web directory.

However, Worthful.Info is not a push-over directory. It doesn't list any website that isn't appropriate for viewing by everyone of all ages and every ethnicity or belief. Futhermore, Worthful.Info will only list quality websites. Made for PPC and adsense ("scraper") websites are not allowed to mingle with the regular links and require a special review for relevance in the Featured Listings section. However, any website or parked domain that is rejected for a featured listing will be refunded the submission fee as long as it conforms to the directory's submission guidelines.

Featured listings are also allowed to deep link to pages within their website instead of just to the front door (homepage) that Regular Listings are bound to. This practise of deep linking is encouraged by Google according to how it seems to give more weight to such links inside the website. However, there are only 5 featured links per category. The 5 Featured Listings show above all of the other Regular Listings on each page for that category. So as the directory grows, and the categories gain more pages, a Featured Listing will show more often in its prominent position above the others.

Free directories are a significant means of developing a network of inbound links to a website. They are particularly helpful in creating a known presence for new websites. As a link from one website to another is considered a positive vote for another (the receiving) website. Furthermore, the more relevant that the page where the link resides is to the website (or page) being linked to, the more weight that one link carries because it is related. As Worthful.Info is a well categorized and keyword optimized directory, it will have relevance for the website submitted. Should a website not have an appropriate category to place its listing, Worthful.Info makes it easy to suggest a link using the online contact form.

Worthful.Info is thinking about how to make the web better for families and family oriented businesses.

Worthful.Info - A Family Resources Index

New Business Resource Listings Web Directory Available: Reciprocate Links!

Doug Peters — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 15:20:00 GMT

"Reciprocate Links!" is a new entry into the general subject business web directory arena. This directory is a well categorized, family freindly, G-rated directory. The Reciprocate.info directory does not accept adult subject or gambling sites of any type. All categories are individually keyword optimized and search engine spider freindly.

Although Reciprocate Links! is considered a link exchange, otherwise known as a reciprocal link directory, this site does offer free (non-reciprocate) links that include the "nofollow" attribute as a means to encourage reciprocating links. Other options include inexpensive one-way links or paid featured links. Reciprocate Links! only displays up to 5 Featured Links per category, and these links will display on the top of all pages within that category. All links approved in the web directory are good for the lifetime of the listed resource.

Reciprocate Links! lists website records in the following order by default: 1) Website listings are displayed according to the value of their Google PageRank, so that a website with a PR of 10 would rank above a website listing for a PR 9 website. 2) Web resources listed with the same PR value will be listed according to the eldest submitted will be displayed first. This encourages webmasters to submit early so that they will rank well amonst the competition as their site increases in PageRank. Note that visitors may change the default sorting method according to their preference.

Free and reciprocate link listings may only link to the main landing site, or the domain name. Paid Regular Links and Category Featured Links may opt to deep link their listings, as long as the inner landing page is appropriate for the directory.

Reciprocate Links! does not list sites with excessive advertising, pop-ups or sites with ads that can be confused for navigation buttons or websites which do not offer a well laid-out navigation system.

Any paid submission which is denied will be refunded the investment as long as the resource is not a gambling or adult site which is trying to skate through undetected, and therefore such submission fee will be kept as a penalty for trying to ruin our G-rated family oriented community directory.

Have the search engines devalued reciprocal links?

Although we do realize that Google has been devaluating links between link reciprocating websites for the most part, we remind you that these links are still of value to Google, and are not devalued by other search engines such as Yahoo Search or MSN Search. Furthermore, web pages which contain similar subject content that are relevant to each other are not devalued by Google. Since Reciprocate Links! is well categorized with many subcategories and keyword optimized for each category or subcategory, this means that at least the page offering listing records from within Reciprocate Links! is going to be similar in subject and relevant to the website listed.

Remember that there IS an investment involved in reciprocating links, your time required to set-up the reciprocal link. For this reason, we feel that the devaluation of reciprocal links from reciprocate directories is over exaggerated.

However, if your linking strategy does require one-way links, they are available as free or extremely inexpensive lifetime links.

Doesn't the "nofollow" tag devalue the importance of a free link?

Yes. In fact, this tag devalues a link in most search engines. But it still remains as a vote in favor of a website for most of them. Google does seem to ignore it the most in our experience, though.

Is Reciprocate Links! a Valuable Resource?

It certainly will be. Reciprocate Links! has just been introduced to the online world and so, at this moment, Google and the other big boy search engines don't even realize that it is out there and available. But they will know soon as Reciprocate Links! is employing a very aggressive and proven successful campaign by yours truly. We certainly encourage all to submit their resource listings as soon as possible in order to remain in good standing at any PR level.