After digging through my stats on Global Web Links Directory, I decided to remove ads from my header and from the frontpage, as they where pretty useless in terms of conversion.
This has lifted the “looks” a bit also on the site, so it dosn’t look so MFA’ish as before.

The internal search also got some adjustments in terms on restricting people to do 1 or 2 character searches, and I have coded a filter to remove the un-family friendly search terms some people use. I dont have any sexual sites in the directory, so no reason for me to show peoples wicked searches on my stats page.

Last thing I made was a AI-filter on my contactform, as I was getting bashed with more and more spam. I wont reveal what exactly I did, but it works and only catching the ones I don’t wanna see in my inbox

I’v made an update to a couple of my directories and will run it for some time to test and upgrade it further, before deploying to the rest of my sites.
Related categories should now be shown when you use the search option on Global Web Links Directory.

A test on this could be a search on “cars” which would return 56 different results, but now also 3 categories with the theme cars
I like the idea to digg right into certain categories, if it matches my search. And hope you do to.

The search is still new, and I already have a long list of further updating to do on it, so it meets my desires. It is not returning all the specific categories that I would like, but have a plan on how I could tweak it to do so.

Any comments or suggestions on the search are welcome, by this blog or to my mail

Ahh, it must be time for a little update here in 2007.
I have been very busy with some client tasks the past days and will continue the next couple of weeks with their projects.
Nevertheless, I keep my focus on the directories, and try to review as much as possible to keep the queues stable.

Late 2006 and start 2007 have shown me very pleasing results throughout all my directories. More of my backlinks are catching on, and I am getting better and better SERPs for my “niches”
I can mention a couple for Global WebLinks here - Google search on:
Quality directory - Rank #2 (84 million results)
SEO friendly directory - Rank #6 (1.6 million results)
Family friendly directory - Rank #2 (4 million results)

And for my detail pages, I rank extremely well on multi-word searches.. This is a clear sign, that what I have been doing the last year, isn’t to bad after all
Traffic for Global-weblinks has risen to around 1000 uniques a day, and improves daily.

Same on my Danish Regional Directory, which has around 2000 uniques these days. 95% of all searches go directly down to the detail-pages as I had worked on they should. (You can read my post about rel=”nofollow” flag for info)

Other news updates are:
Im participating in a couple of contests, and its going ok there to.
One is the “directoryranking.com” which shows the best directories for a predefined listing, and woups, I rank #1 on Google with Global-weblinks.com on a standard listing
The “directorycontest.com” is a bit harder, and I’m ranking 15 atm. 1000*factor more pages trying to rank for it, and I belive alot of the best sites, are trying to drive insane backlinks to their pages, so lets call it a SEO contest, and not Directory Contest.
I will probably do the same as eveyrone else is, and drive some hard backlinks to the detail page, as it is allowed in the rules.

Recently got interviewed by talkdirectories.com, a new Directory forum on the net. You can find the complete interview here:

Well, I guess this goes for my first 2007 post, and when I get the client tasks done, I will be back and updating you some more

I am proud to present a new design on my international free directory Global WebLinks.

The last couple of days have been used to get this new look out to the public, and I am very pleased with the result so far.
There are still alot of tweaks to be done, but the overall theme is pretty clear now

A new friend of mine at CodecsNow.dk has been so kind to make this excellent design, as apart from his working speed, the quality is also in superb. I respect that!

If you have any comments, negative or good then please let me know here.

Just a very quick update on the recent contest I have decided to participate in Directorycontest.com/
Looks like I jumped up to a 12th place on the first crawl/indexing Result page. Thats quite ok. Now the detail page just has to get a little time to suck the wonderful juice out of the internal links strengths, and I should rocket up on 1. page

If I wanted, then I could have tweaked a real nice category with both keywords “directory” and “contest”, but dont think its wise to turn it into a 100% SEO contest.
This IS about finding the strong directories, and not the best SEO experts.

more info will follow as I get the results pages checked

Further update 15. dec:
I have not been able to find anything in the rules about number of entries pr. person allowed, so decided for the heck of it to add my brand new paid directory AllUcDirectory in the directorycontest.com
I do not expect anything from this at all, and cannot expect anything from a site less than a week old.

Further update 30. dec.
Have been working alot the past few weeks, and have just made a check on the rankings again and will update here:
www.global-weblinks.com fell 2 places and is at 14th position
www.allucdirectory.com has climbed to 29th position

Technorati Tags: directorycontest, contest, directory

Ok, I think a post explaining the use of rel=nofollow on some of my directories is in order, so I can explain the very good reasons why I have done this, as there are much confusion on the internet about this tag. Many rate a directory useless if they spot a nofollow tag somewhere on the pages within.*SHHHH. Let me share a secret with you: That belief is not allys true*

Background:
After some intense testing on my pages, categories and detailpages it became clear that eg. Global WebLinks Directory was leaking its PageRank / PageStrength so fast, that only the first main category pages got some link juice and spreaded it out on the first 20 listings in the main category (Page 1). Some categories have 600+ listings, so that means the directory became pretty useless for 580 other listings in the category.
My mission is to give everyone a fair chance of the link popularity my page can offer, and not only the alphabetically top. Importaint to remember the directory IS free.

A brilliant tag has been made rel=”nofollow” where I can try to control the flow of link juice, so with precise and specific usage, I can keep the link juice inward and first spread it out on the detail pages that every listing has in the directory.

I have made a few data flow diagrams to show how the internal / external links is distributed.

This shows the distribution I make. Instead of ALOT of outgoing links on the “linkfarmish” category pages, I throw it all down to the subcategories and detailpages, which will then provide every link in the system with a indexed backlink with moderate strength.

To say it short: I take the high linkstrength from the sites first in alphabeth and give it more equally to all. (Robin Hood style)

I also run a Toplink program (featured listings) and as a thank for their backlink or payment, they are the only ones in the directory without any rel=nofollow flags at all.
You can see a diagram below for TopLinks.

The reason for my confidence relies on many tests done on my Regional Danish Directory and the power of this method has become so so clear.
I get alot of quality traffic now from searchengines, directly down to the high ranking detailpages on the directory. Everybody wins by this. I get more traffic/more indexed pages and higher incomming links chance because of the bigger audience, which serves the detailpages = linkowners in the end.

An explanation of the diagrams:

I might add more to the post in time, but guess this goes for a quick explanation.

Technorati Tags: directory, directories, searchengines, nofollow

The casino market seems to have a keen interest in submitting to directories, as I daily get some casino related site submitted to mine. And with inspiration from my good friend Frank, I used the day to setup a new directory dedicated to Casino Game sites. AboveAllCasinoGames.com :)  
Again I want to make it grow into a quality directory over the comming years, so the fees are set pretty high for a completely new directory.
Over time I might remove my poker and casino category from my other directories and keep all gambling related sites strictly to: AboveAllCasinoGames.com. This is something I will decide over time.

Technorati Tags: casino, poker, directory, directories

After about 15 hours of work I have my new Paid Directory ready for launch.
AllUcDirectory.com is my newborn directory, and it will be one of the directories I will continue to work hardest on to get a good and strong directory for the future. (This will mean days, weeks, months, years of promoting it)

The directory is based on my own script used on all my other directories aswell.
The directory will be ad-free. Meaning no adsense or affiliate banners.
 

It will only accept quality content sites. (Quality over money)
All listings is permanent and will remain to atleast year 2050
I will have a max # listings in each category. Not set yet, but probably 15-20 

Prices for submitting is set high, as this in time will be a high PageRank / Page Strong directory.
- Featured $44.85
- Featured Deep Link $54.85
- Standard $14.85
- Standard Deep Link $24.85
- Standard with Reciprocal (PR2 minimum) $6.85 

I just found this Directory Contest through my favorite forum DP. Its a great competition between directory owners, to show how good and strong their directory is.
Winners will be the top 10 directories that show up on Google search on the Directory Contests webpage “directorycontest.com”
End date for the contest is February 6. 2007, 10 AM P.S.T

Prizes are donated by several sponsors, and the total prizesum keeps going up as more sponsors join in.

1. Prize $2000
2. Prize $400
3. Prize $200
+ alot of other goodies. See the current prizes here

I love this. After working hard all year with theese directories I own, I can finally put one of them to the test. I’m gonna use Global WebLinks Directory as my entry. (The wise thing might have been to put it up on my strongest directory Danskelinks.dk, but I really like to try my international directory on this, as it is my plan to improve this directory alot in the new year and it will be my Flag Ship )
The directory have had a really hard ride after I made a complete site structure change this summer. Google did not like that change, and I was out in the void for 2 months, and now … slowly … returning to what I would expect of my directory. Traffic is going up by the day, and my audience is turning over to “normal people” from SE and not just webmasters looking for a free link.

Only sad thing is I first spot this competition now But I’m sure it will go ok
If you own a directory, then join this contest. I really recommend it!

Technorati Tags: contest, directorycontest, directories, directory

Now that I have made a my own blog, my attention came to how I manage blogs on my international directory. Sadly they have never been given much thought, so I just threw all blogs into one sub folder on a temporary category.
Today, I have expanded my general directory with a specific blog category. Slowly the blogs allready approveded in the directory will be reviewed again, and placed in the new sub categories I will make on demand.
This way I can have a clean area for blogs only, and at the same time get them out of the other categories around the directory.

If you are a blog owner, then you are more than welcome to add your own blog for free, and get a little link love

Technorati Tags: Web Directory, Blog Directory, Blogs, Submit Blog