Here is what it is -

Q. Some Personal Insight Of Yours?
I see questions all the time in forums about starting a directory. For those of you thinking about starting a quality directory it is not an easy path and takes quite a bit of hard work in building a concept to implementing it to gaining a presence. If you are thinking in terms of a quality directory resource be prepared for the time and effort it will take.

Q. From when are you into the web directory world?
I really started gaining an interest in SEO, link building and website promotion in 2005 while promoting another site of mine. While doing that I learned about and gained a strong interest in directories and the services they provided and about a year ago began planning my own directory. It went through about 3 months of planning a concept and another couple months of building and design to become the Authority Directory which was launched in July 2007.

Q. How many directories do you own, and can you please share them?
I currently have one directory, but I am in the planning stages for another directory which will serve a niche and there is a possibility of making one additional directory after that. It really depends on if I feel I can devote the time necessary to do it right.

Q. How do you rate your own directories now?
I would say the Authority Directory compares favorably with most directories currently available. I personally feel it ranks among the top directories, but of course I am a little biased. You can also look to some third parties that don’t have the bias I do for my own site when it comes to rating the Authority Directory. The Authority Directory recently won the January 2008 Site of the Month from phpLD and first runner up for the 2007 Directory of the Year at iGuides.

Q. What kind of promotions you have done for the directories?
I promote using many methods. Some of the methods I have used are press releases, forum signatures, directory submissions, sponsoring free templates, article submissions, directory lists and a couple that I am forgetting right now.

Q. Do you think your directories will rank well in thousands of these?
You are absolutely right there are thousands of directories out there. The thing is that nearly all of those thousands of directories are just not in the same league as the Authority Directory and cannot be compared. I would say that it ranks very well among the other quality directories.

Q. What are your ways of earning in the directory? Only links or Sitewides etc. ?
The only revenue for the directory is through site reviews for possible inclusion to the directory and the site of the day feature for listings to generate additional traffic. That revenue is turned around to further promote the directory.

As far as the site wide links you mention, you will never see them on the Authority Directory nor will there ever be any adsense related things going on.

Q. Do you have future plans on building the directory more?
I always like to make improvements and I do have a couple ideas for additions to the site, but I think I will keep them to myself because I don’t have a specific timeline for them yet.

Q. Which directory script do you think is the best and why?
I like and prefer phpLD. David and the rest of the people there provide great support for their product and are dedicated to producing quality.

Q. What do you think would be the future of directories?
I think the future of directories can be a strong one for the people who are making them if they focus on the visitors that use them. If your intentions are to make a quality resource with quality content for the traffic you receive you can’t go wrong.

Q. What are your suggestions to the upcoming directory owners?
If you’re going to build a directory, build a quality one that will be useful to your visitors.

Q. Lastly, which is your favorite directory?
Other than mine I assume. I do have a few favorites. Some are for design reasons, some for an innovative feature they have and others because I like the owner. I think rather than run the risk of forgetting one or offending someone else I will politely decline this question.

Here goes the interview -

1. Can you let us know something about your personal background?

Sure. I’m about to turn 22 and my real name is Anthony. Most people know me only by Leopard. Before being interested in developing websites, I was one of those AOL nerds who used Visual Basic to build silly little programs such as punters and bots. Although it was very basic programming, it laid the foundation for me to learn other languages. I started working with databases at around age 16 and since then, been doing mostly freelance work.

2. From when are you into the Web directory world?

Although I didn’t own a directory nor purchased phpLD until April, my interest in the web directory world was in mid February of this year. At first, I had no intention of getting myself into it until I realized it was really exciting.

3. Which directory scripts do you work on specifically?

I work with phpLD primarily due to its large user base established.

4. Is it the inspiration of any other MOD Writer or did you start writing MODS by your own interest?

Even though the only real experience of me working with PHP was developing osCommerce sites, I looked at phpLD and realized I can do a lot with it. At first, I had no interest in building mods until I spent more time on DP. As each day passed, I was able to think of more and more ideas that people may find useful. With each idea came more interest in trying to develop them.

5. What web directories do you own at present?

As of now I only own RipenApples.com and have lots of plans for it. I realized the only way I can make it the way I envision it, is to completely redo the frontend and make it all PERL.

6. Can you list out your work done on MODS in several directory scripts?

Some mods I built so far include RSS news feeds combined with DHTML tabs, a pagerank report of your detail and category pages, a category dump generator, a category meta description generator, and a phpLD Payment system.

7. Do you offer any services of paid MOD installations anywhere?

As of now I only offer installation services to my phpLD Payment System. The system allows no unpaid submissions going inside your phpLD admin, deep links with individual prices, coupons, disabling top level categories, multiple submissions, multiple categories, and more.

8. In the web world, apart from web directories, do you offer or do anything else?

As of now, not really. Before web directories I freelanced a lot building unique custom web applications that included finance tools, e-commerce tools, online football squares, march madness pool manager, and a sports betting simulator.

9. Do you make a new MOD on the request of a directory owner, or by just your own plan?

Both. It depends on the request and if I’m capable or not.

10. Have you felt any difficulty in writing a MOD anytime? Share any experiences!

The mods I built so far were pretty much in my reach. The most difficult one I had to do was the page rank report for detail and category pages. That was when I had to resort to the php Smarty manual and to get my hands dirty with PHP.

11. How can the web directory owners get in contact with you?

I’m on Yahoo! Instant Messenger (username is LeopardAT1) and view my e-mails (anthony[at]dirtracker.com) daily.

12. If you would like to share anything else with us, or other directory owners, please do so!

Try to be unique as much as possible! Work hard and focus on content, which will better the directory industry overall. Also, if you plan on starting a general directory, expect to be patient. Established directories may not come in months, but years.

Thanks for the Interview Anthony! We were glad you took out time and gave the interview.

http://www.directory-owners.com/ – A web directory owners forum, taken several interviews.
http://www.nobledirectory.com/directory-owners/ – Ourselves, taken a couple interviews till now. Planning to do more soon.
http://www.dirten.com/ – Blog sharing interviews and some inspirational posts about directories.
http://www.directorykit.com/ – Taken a few interviews, and shares directory tips.
http://www.web1directory.com/blog/ – Has an inspirational interview of a directory owner
http://www.thedirectoryblog.com/ – shares information about directories, and owners interviews.
http://www.webdirectoryreviews.com/ – Reviews of the directory + Interview of the same directory owner. Done quite a few interviews.

There are a few others, would be shared soon.

Here are the Directory Owners interviews taken till now, might be more but i could find only these -

• Interview with David DuVal Owner of PHP link directory

• Interview with Paul, Owner of WSN Links Script WSN Link Directory

• Interview with Stuart C. McHenry, President, Site Sift Media, Inc.

• Interview with Kev – Owner of PhpLynx Script

• Interview with Simon Gooffin of esyndicat

• Interview with Chris Hoffman owner of Alive Directory

• Interview with John Scott owner of V7N Directory

• Interview with Peter Laws Owner of Pedsters-Planet Directory

• Interview with Jeff of Aviva Directory

• Interview with Bruce Stone owner of WoW Directory

• Interview is with Temi Odurinde owner of Haabaa.com

• Interview with Fabio Cuffaro owner of Massive Links Directory

• Interview with the Loren Baker of Umdum Directory

• Interview with Brent Champagne@Best Web Directories

• Interview with Marlin of Index-It Web Directory

• Interview with David Eaves of Biz-Dir Web Directory

• Amit Patel – Owner of GII Interviewed

• Interview with Jeffrey Behrendt – Aviva Directory

• Interview With A Directory Owner Who Has 50+ Directories – Malcolm

• Directories Battlefield – Let The Battle Begin – Loredan

• Interview with C. Bejenaru, lead programmer of Php Link Directory

• Interview with Mike Dammann about the Directory Contest

• Finally the eye speaks: Info Vilesilencer Interview

• Interview with one of the more experienced people in the directory field

• Phynder of DP fame, talks about his Un-Directory project!

• Interview with smub of idk.in

• Vegabond – AllTheLink.com Owner

• Sander Baumann – DirSpace.com Owner

• Damien Mase – DirectoryCritic.com Owner

• Simon Gooffin – eSyndicat CEO

• Mike Dammann – The man behind DirectoryContest.com and owner of FrogEngine.com

• Ben Johnson from PhpMyDirectory

• Gabriel Harper from PhpLinkBid

Here are the Directory Designers interviews taken till now, might be more but i could find only these -

• Shabu Anower: A PHPLD Template Designer – Interview

• Interview with Zeb (Agent47) – Designer

• Interview with Marko Petkovic – Designer

• Interview with Emillie Loh

Here are a few directory reviews + owners interviews taken by WebDirectoryReviews.com -

• Dmoz/ODP Web Directory

• BQTM Directory Presentation

• Bidding Directory Review for Zorg Links

• Directory Share Review

• UK One Way Links Directory Review

• Noble Directory Review

• Indie Coffeehouse Arts Directory

• Web Talk Directory Reviewed

• KingBloom Directory Review

• eSyndicat Directory Script – By Web Directory Reviews Network

Please share any other Interviews if they are not here, and i would add them. This would make an ultimate resource for newbies to learn something from the seniors.

You can check out the review of Noble Directory.

Here is a part of the review -

Directory has no broken links that we noticed. This directory has real potential, it already has a good pagerank of 4, and expecting possibly pagerank of 6, inner pages and detail pages also have pageranks. Noble, although doesn’t have too many active links, but has some helpful content. For example I never knew there was something called “Tollywood”, I was aware of only Bollywood and Hollywood, but “tollywood”? Now I know !! . There are quite a few mods installed which increase the overall functionality of the directory, for example the “A-Z listings Mod” and “Sitemap”. Directory also offers lots of Deeplinks for regular and featured listings. Submission process is simple, but the guideline instructions are not that readily visible, maybe Chetan might want to put them on the submission page itself. Overall a good directory but still would give 9/10 for lacking a unique design and malformed logo/header.

Else is my answers to the questions in the interview. Check it out

1. Can you give us a brief description about yourself?

I’m a full-time directory owner and operator. I have been running directories for almost two and a half years now.

I don’t really have much of a background in web design. My interest in it stems more from a marketing point of view: the use of design to increase a prospect’s trust in your directory and to make him or her more likely to submit to your directory. Web design also can help in branding your directory – for instance, Aviva Directory has a very distinctive dark design that makes it stand out.

2. How many directories do you have and who is the designer for all of your directories?

I have 5 main directories that I concentrate on. They are Aviva, Sevenseek, Kwikgoblin, Apahcinc, and Web10.

All of them except Kwikgoblin were designed by Marko Petkovic. Marko is in the process of doing a re-design for Kwikgoblin, which should be ready soon.

3. Do you give total freedom to the designer to design your directory or do you get involved in every step to make sure it is like what you want? Why?

I normally give the designer pretty much free reign. My philosophy is that they are the professional, not me. If you cannot have that sort of respect for your designer, then perhaps you’ve chosen the wrong person.

Normally, the designer and I have an initial discussion about the concept for the directory. The designer will provide a mock up of the concept, we will discuss changes and details, and then the designer will provide a revised and more detailed concept. Once that is approved, the designer will finish the project.

4. What are the important criteria to choose a directory designer?

That’s like asking: how do you choose a friend or a romantic partner? A lot of it really happens on an emotional level. Look at various designers’ portfolios. If you see a designer’s portfolio and it excites you, you are probably halfway there to choosing the right designer.

The basic qualities of good communication, honesty and reliability that you’d look for whenever you hire someone are, of course, important.

Support given after completion is important too. As your directory grows and matures, you will probably want to make a number of tweaks and small changes in your design. You will want to know that your designer will be around and be able to help with these changes. Speaking with clients of the designer is a good way to ascertain this.

5. Why is a custom design important for a paid directory?

It provides a trust factor that the directory is going to be in business for the long haul. It can also be used for marketing the directory.

6. What are your favorite directory designs? Can you name a few?

There was a Best Designed Directory Ever contest and I think that pretty much summarized the situation at that time. The contestants were Abifind, All Media, BayEngine, Best Dirs, Edge Level, Eonte, Umdum, v7 Directory, Webtopia, and Wow.

Since that contest two new designs in particular have stood out in my mind as particularly attractive: Directory Dump and Directory Journal.

7. What is your advice for directory owners on how to choose a directory designer?

Be very choosy. If you are in the directory business for the long haul, do not shop based on price. Take a good amount of time to browse through the designer’s portfolio and see which ones you like.

Pay particular attention to the details of the directories previously designed – this is often what distinguishes amateurs from professionals.

Although I understand that for many designers, coding is about as fun as eating vegetables, I also have a preference for using a designer who does his or her own coding. I think that this adds an extra layer of protection and integrity to the process.

Here we will have a small interview with him in which he discusses with us various aspects of the Web Directory Industry which has boomed a lot in the last few years. He shares with us his experiences in the industry and also provides some valuable tips to Directory Owners

Where did you get the idea to start a web directory ?
I have been providing seo services at our seo company to many of our clients and that was when i had seen great improvements in our rankings and i got a idea to get serious on a single web directory instead of handling many small ones. The web directory at the beginning was started as a normal phpld based directory but then slowly i started working on it in terms of serps and not backlinks.

How much time do you spend to maintain your directory roughly ?
I sped around 3-4 hours/day on an average on gii web directory to check out the latest improvements, new tweaks, adding fresh content, managing my staff to work on its content part etc and approving the latest recieved listings.

What are your future plans for GII ?
I have many plans for gii in the comming months but iam not interested right now to disclose them, but one of those is to make a web directory which offers returning traffic and means really a web directory and not just links directory which passes PR & backlinks.

What do you think it takes to make a successful web directory?
A Directory owner has to be very serious on his directory and its not always that a unique designed web directory would perform well and is worth to get listed, but a web directory should have serious efforts put into it and the results can be seen in the form of the serps.

What do you think submitters must look for besides a link, before submitting to the directory?
I would say they should look on the branding, promotions, efforts made by the respective directory owner and not just the current PR , because there are many directories which have been PR7 at a time and the next update they were PR6 which was because of lack of promotions or reinvestment. Also a important factor which the submitters must look at is the traffic the directory has, because a directory is not necessarily made for PR and backlinks but a good directory also delivers relevant and targetted traffic.

Do you think web directories are still useful and have a bright future ? Why ?
Yes, there is always a great scope for a web directory but the point is the owner should plan and innovate new unique things / features instead of just creating another quick money making web directory.

Is the Business of Web Directories still profitable? What are the pros and cons ?
This purely depends on how you plan out on your web directory , because i have seen many directory owners buying high PR backlinks and making high PR directories later on selling quick links and then completely stopping promotions of their web directories. Hence , a directory would be profitable when you plan out on how to reinvest the money in promoting your web directory instead of just planning to make quick money from it.

How much investment do you think is required to make a successful web directory ? How should the capital be spent on the directory?
A quality directory would count in unique design, unique ideas, scripts , mods, promotions etc and this would range from high xxxx$ in the beginning to low xxxxx$ in the later stage.

What you have to say about the competition among web directories ?
Currently there are many directories and each of those have something unique , hence its hard to say which one is good.I have been a fan of Alive directory for its enormous promotions , Aviva directory for its link baiting and many other popular directories, but i would suggest only one thing to them is – Dont be QBC’s

Conclusion

So we could see from the interview that Amit mainly emphasizes the fact that Web Directories must not only be seen from the SEO point of view i.e. for getting Link Juice and Page Rank or Backlinks but also must be seen as a instrument to get targetted traffic. This could come only when the directory has better SERPS or ranks high for various keywords which are infact categories of the directory so that those category pages get visits directly from the Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) which finally goes to the links listed on the particular category page. This could be achived by various methods like adding content to the web directory, getting backlinks directly pointing to the category pages from relevant sites.

| Read more

Here goes the interview -

Q. Some Personal Insight Of Yours?
I love being a web marketer it is the best job I have ever had by a long shot.

Q. From when are you into the web directory world?
Shortly after starting my SEO company last August I started thinking about setting one up mainly for my clients, I never got around to it until last December though when the Directory Contest started, I saw this as an ideal opportunity to promote a directory, I finished top ten in the contest and the links that I had built and attracted got me a PageRank of 5/10, I started a thread on Digital Point and Chris from Mystik Media submitted 20+ sites, this is when I started taking it a bit more seriously, I started properly marketing it and had a custom design made.

Q. How many directories do you own, and can you please share them?
Just the one www.biz-dir.co.uk I may start a couple of niche directories in the near future though.

Q. How do you rate your own directories now?
It is still very new and although it has good PageRank etc. it is still very much in the Google sandbox and it doesn’t rank for any of the terms I want it to so I do not rate it at the moment. I will rate it a lot more when the directory starts to rank well on Google and Yahoo. Some directory owners are more creative and blog and write articles to get traffic, or develop templates and themes, I think Biz-Dir is going to have to rank high in the search engines to give it an edge.

Q. What kind of promotions you have done for the directories?
I have got a few of my friends to link to it from their sites, submitted to other directories, got it listed at Directory Critic, Info Vilesilencer and Search Engine Coloussus, got a site-wide on a popular blog and some banners on high traffic webmaster related sites. I have also tried to optimise it but this has yet to kick in.

Q. Do you think your directories will rank well in thousands of these?
I am doing my best, I have listened carefully to what Jeff (Aviva) and John Scott (V7N) have had to say, I reject a lot of sites and add sites for free that I think are quality, I have also rewrote the vast majority of the company descriptions to avoid duplicate content issues, I always look at Aviva to get ideas, Aviva is really well-developed and organized, it is easy to find exactly what you are looking for, at the moment my directory cannot compete with directories like Aviva, but as time goes by and I get more sites listed and more categories added hopefully it will.

Q. What are your ways of earning in the directory? Only links or Sitewides etc. ?
I believe that selling site-wides will certainly devalue a directory, I can’t see any harm in having a few sponsored links on the homepage, but having 10 or 20 site-wide sponsored links on their is just going to drain all of the PageRank out of the directory and leave little if any PageRank for the listed sites.

Q. Do you have future plans on building the directory more?
Absolutely, Biz-Dir is still very new and I aim to increase the amount of categories dramatically to make it a better resource for searchers, I also aim to get 5000 business sites listed.

Q. Which directory script do you think is the best and why?
I have used PHPLD and I think they are the best because they are easy to submit to, easy to manage, easy to optimize and the top and latest links pages make Google re-index almost every other day which gets new detail pages indexed very quickly for submitters.

Q. What do you think would be the future of directories, when seeing these many all around?
I think their will always be a need for directories, they help site owners and they help the search engines.

Q. What are your suggestions to the upcoming and new directory owners, who might get inspired from you?
Work hard at it and you will get there.

Q. Lastly, which is your favorite directory?
Aviva – avivadirectory.com

And here goes the Interview -

Q. Some Personal Insight Of Yours?
A. First I would like to say thanks for this interview and I am happy to answer your questions. Some may only know me by forums names, but my real name is Marlin. Outside of owning a directory my main job is doing search engine marketing for other web sites. Online Marketing Advisors is the parent company to all of my sites and I have been doing seo for quite some time now. Starting a directory was more of an seo test at first but then things started to pick up so I thought why not get into this market and see what I can do. Some might remember index-it finishing 6th in the directory contest, we also made a good showing in the carcasherdotcom Seocontest as well and finished 13th. Not the best results but they sure brought in some good seo clients. Other then that it mostly work and play alittle here and there.

Q. How long have you been working on your directories?
A. Index-it.net was launched in May of 2006 with webbieo coming about 3 or 4 months after that.

Q. How many directories do you own, and can you please share them?
A. Currently I only own index-it.net and webbieo.com. I will be releasing a new one fairly soon once everything has been set up correctly. Let me point out that index-it.net is my bread & butter, webbieo.com could be a very strong directory if I put more into it, but that is why the price is so low. There are plans to make webbieo a much better directory in the future but right now it is on the back burner, the directory does get sales though even without any advertising.

Q. How do you rate your own directories now?
A. To be honest, I think index-it.net is very powerful directory and is more then worth the review fee. But there are some problems with the directory that need to be addressed, such as more categories and better display in other browsers. If I ran across this directory with out me owning it I would still rate it fairly high, at least in the top 20, I think the directory has deserved at least that much over the past year. But like I said there are few things that need to be addressed before I can start accepting gold ribbons for it.

Q. What kind of promotions you have done for the directories?
A. Alot of money has gone into promoting index-it.net. In the beginning I was taking links anywhere I could find them, but now I am taking a much more different approach in order to raise sales, it is more important for me to get the directory out where people can see it, advertising in places such as high traffic blogs and forums is a good way to capture submitters. I understand that alot of people do not want to advertise on sites that use a “no follow” but I am starting to look into this a little more in terms of bringing good traffic to the site which in turn, and I hope, will lead to more sales. At the same time I always keep pushing for that high pr mark.

Q. Do you think your directories will rank well in thousands of these?
A. As long I keep pushing the directory then I do not see a problem with it ranking well on the search engines. It already has some pretty good rankings now with some even better ones coming up soon. In either case I am happy with the current rankings but will keep working to make them better.

Q. What are your ways of earning in the directory? Only links or Sitewides etc.?
A. Good question. To me any link that points to your directory has a chance of bringing sales. I think sitewides are great in terms of helping a site rank higher on the search engines, now whether or not they bring sales is kind of hard to say. But I do know that 56% of my traffic comes from referring sites, with 26% coming from the search engines. But to be honest I don’t care where the sales come from as long as keep coming, the sites have to be clean of course because I do not just accept anything that comes my way.

Q. Do you have future plans on building the directory more?
A. Yes, there are alot of things that need to be done on index-it but time has been a big factor lately. I plan to add more categories soon and maybe offer a few more feature listings then what is currently available.

Q. Which directory script do you think is the best and why?
A. Well I have never really used a directory script before so I really can’t say. Index-it.net was built by hand with pure html code. I am however playing around with both phpld and indexu scripts just to get a feel of what they can do. Both have some good features and both have some bad ones as well. My next directory will in fact feature one of these scripts, which one I plan on going with has not been decided yet.

Q. What do you think would be the future of directories, when seeing these many all around?
A. The directory market still has a bright future ahead of it, nowadays we are seeing more and more real business people stepping into this market, in other words people who take business seriously are starting to look at the directory market and now want a piece of the action. I think this is a good move for the directory market, the more directory owners we have that are dedicated to the business the better it will be for all of us. It is sad to see all of the cookie cutter directories out there but as time goes on only those with 100% dedication will last.

Q. What are your suggestions to the upcoming and new directory owners, who might get inspired from you?
A. My advice is that anyone who plans to join this market that they do some really good research first and get a good understanding of what submitters are looking for. It is not always about how high your page rank is, although that does seem to be the big money maker for most directories. Focus on making a well structured directory and put some good advertisement behind it, if you do that then the submitters will come and so will the pr.

Q. Lastly, which is your favorite directory?
A. This is a really hard one to answer because there are so many good ones out there. So If I may I’ll point out a few that stand out the most to me. We already know the power of Alive & Aviva, but I really like what the owners of romow.com and ewebpages.org are doing with their directories, both are very well built and have a good presence on the internet, the prices are fair also. I also like what dirsensei.com is doing as well and although this directory is pretty new I think it has a nice future ahead of it. But to answer the question my over all favorite is still botw.org, mainly because of the level of consistency that the directory offers.

Interesting? Digg it here –

This is a blog where i will be taking interviews of the most successful web directory owners, and will be showing here, so that people can know who these successful guys are.. and also can get a lot to learn from them.

Will be adding the interviews soon.