8 replies to this topic

[greggb]

Hey all. Long time, no post.

I've got a hypothetical question, and I'd love to hear as many answers to this question as possible.

Imagine that the following software/service were available to you, for free-- I mean 100% free, no strings attached. The question is: would you use it? And if you wouldn't use it, why not?

Before I start, I want to mention that I'm not trying to pitch the software/service I'm referring to. There are no links to my website (or anything about me) in this posting. I just want to get some opinions.

I'm talking about software/service that makes it incredibly easy to create a directory/search engine for your website. I'm referring to a level of easiness you've never seen before--really easy. This software allows you to create and manage a directory, adding categories, sub-categories, and listings at the touch of a button. You could do things like rename categories and move listings from category to category just as easily.

The software produces a directory that is equal than or better to Yahoo's directory in term's of functionality and ease of use. Along with that, it provides a search function that uses fairly high-tech algorithms (not just a simple "grep" function), which produces very relevant results. It also indexes pages the way real SEs do (which provides very fast query time) and has the ability to spider websites.

Finally, it's fully customizable. It allows you to format your directory/search engine to the exact look of your normal website pages, very easily. Also, it can be configured to appear at your website URL (rather than the URL of the website that is hosting it).

The question, once again, is whether or not you'd use such a software/service. The reason I ask is because I'm developing a website which will have a very large directory, and I developed software that made it very easy for me to manage my directory. I'm thinking about providing my software to the internet public as a free service. I'd hope to make money from the service by advertising.

I'm wondering if this is something that would be useful to webmasters, as a website attraction.

Please let me know what you'd think about the idea.

Thanks,
Gregg

[OldWelshGuy]

Hi Greg, there are a couple of such bits of kit available, though I have not tried them all out. We bought a cgi search engine script that is very good, has the ability to run keyword based banner ads etc and it was free to use with a link back to the developers site, or you could buy a single site licence for about $50 (which we did) this allows you to fully customise the layout including removing the 'site powered by' link back to the developer.

I am building a couple of specialised search facilities by subject and also by geo and have found it great to use as it has a programmable spidering facility. Pages are retrieved and are then listed for editoring.

I have also considered that maybe a Yahoo style directory would be a nice touch for subjects like tourism, where people would be more happy to browse rather than search as they are not sure what they are looking for until they find it.

So IMHO i would say yes there is a place for this, but not sure which way you get funding. Possibly the way to go would be two versions, FREE = adverts, licenced = clean, with the licencee ability to select ads and earn revenue for themselves maybe?

[qwerty]

I'd consider using it. One of my sites has a number of outbound links, and I've considered breaking that up into numerous pages sorted by category. We're still below the magic number of 100 links, so it's not a matter of necessity; more of keeping the layout clean and organized.

I don't think at this point that I'd pay for something like that. I'd probably do the whole thing by hand, which really wouldn't be very difficult (although there wouldn't be a search function). I'd be much more likely to use software to do it if we were up around 1000 links.

[UKDK]

As far as I know there are plenty of free directory scripts, I set one up a while ago now as an added extra to one of the sites I run.

I thought it would be nice to set up a directory of suppliers that do things that we don't, so if we can't help a customer we suggest having a look through our directory.

We also let customers add links in the directory (as long as they are not competing sites).

As an added bonus we run Adsense on it, this helps the cost of our Adwords campaign

UKDK

[SearchRank]

I may use it. We operate a decent size directory with about 64 categories. I would want a software that allowed for editors to have their own accounts and in which they could add sites or an end user could add theirs which would post after they pay and it is approved.

Search function would be nice as long as it searched only the directory and not other areas of the site.

Don't know if I'd want other people's ads in there. Would rather pay for it than to have ads.

But to tell you the truth, we will probably eventually do this kind of programming on our directory ourselves - it just hasn't grown to a size that justifies spending the time to do that yet. But if we did not have programming capabilities, I may consider using it and if I didn't have any money, I guess I'd put up with the ads.

[Thanol]

I'd use it as long as it ran on CGI or PHP/MYSQL. If you do make such a program I'd definatly use it to fix up my mini directory where every entry is hand coded in.

[samt]

I'm referring to a level of easiness you've never seen before--really easy.

If it's like moron-easy, I'm game. Seriously. I fell into this job (read: got suckered) because I'm an internet shopper, that was my main qualification. I'd love to add a search function to my site, but I haven't even seriously looked into it yet, cause I'm pretty sure it's at least a couple miles over my head at this point. But if it was like 'for dummies' easy, I'd be all over it (they should have called those books 'Hey Sam' ).

[UKDK]

Samt and Thanol

If you want the details of the one I used sticky me. Its totally free and runs on PHP/MYSQL.

It takes about 5 miniutes to set up.

Oh, and just to clarify, I am in no way involved or affiliated with this script, I just like it.

UKDK

[AaronC]

im sure you can get somethings like this from www.hotscripts.com yeah i think you can.