14 replies to this topic

[Eddie]

I am getting an increasing amount of emails asking various questions about the Directory so here is a frequently asked questions thread which I will update regularly.

[Eddie]

The Spider.

We have our own spider that we send out regularly looking for Gloucestershire sites. This is a piece of software that searches for various keywords and phrases that we send crawling the web. It is fairly good at finding them in titles, urls and page content, but I'm afraid we dont have the resources of Google so it can only add Titles, Meta descriptions and keywords to the database.

These results are looked at by human beings and then allocated the correct folder and the software then sends the owner an email to inform them. This allows site owners to change their listings.

[Eddie]

Free and Premium listings

Anyone with a Gloucestershire site is guarranteed a free listing, but for those who want to stand out from the crowd a Premium listing ( one time fee ) does tske priority in searches.

[Eddie]

Why should I use the Gloucestershire Directory

Why should I use the Gloucestershire Directory when I can just as easilly find what I want with Google or Yahoo ?

Because we only list Gloucestershire sites. The major search engines are very good for general searches, but not very good at weeding out the rubbish.

A good example is if you were looking for a hotel in Gloucestershire.



On our directory lists hundreds and there are no foreign sites there.

We currently list around 6000 local sites.

[Eddie]

Advertising

We do take advertising on the directory as this site costs in the region of £5000.00 a year to run, but you will only see one advert at the top of the screen. We dont intend to go the route of many sites that spaltter adverts all over the page.

[Eddie]

Rate It

Every listing has a Rate It link.

An example : Rating: [7.67] Votes: [6] In this case there have been 6 votes for the site leading to a score of 7.67 out of 10 .

A high rating helps the site to be found when users search. Anyone can vote for a site.

[Eddie]

Comments

By clicking on the comments link by any listing you can leave a comment on the site.

Please note these dont go live before we review them. If it is a negative comment you must leave an email address so we can confirm it is genuine.

[Eddie]

Report Link

You can Report a Broken Link by clicking on this. We will then check it and delete the listing if it is no longer working.

[Eddie]

Number of hits

Each listing shows how many hits ( how many visitors we have sent to the site ) . This is updated once a day.

[Eddie]

You spidered my site, but it doesnt have a description

That would be because your web designer didnt put a Meta descriptions tag in your site. Drop us an email though and we will update your listing. We do advise you to ask your web designer to add the atags as they are still used a lot.

[Eddie]

How can I update my listing ?

If you Register for an account then we you can request changes from there.

[Eddie]

The directory is now approaching 7000 gloucestershire sites.

[Eddie]

We now list over 7500 Gloucestershire web sites. If you run a local site then don't forget you can list it free

[Poppy P]

How do I like a post Eddie? It just comes up that I have reached my quota, when I haven't actually done (liked) anything!

[Eddie]

I'll take a look Poppy. It is probably my fault for not setting permission after an upgrade