The Perfect Listing
We have decided to take a different approach to handling free submissions. They need to be perfect.
When a directory accepts free links it is usually asking for trouble. If, of course, the owners are serious about creating a lasting, high-quality directory. What distinguishes the high-quality directories from the low-quality ones are the people running the show and their standards. If a directory basically approves everything submitted, its a trash site and not worth anything. On the other hand, if the editors are very selective it will eventually translate into high-quality authoritative directory.
So how does one create such a directory with little or no reputation? Patience is key. It will take a long time to get noticed and build up a real reputation. So to make that reputation strong, one has to set solid and very restrictive rules for approval. Offering free submissions can really make this hard.
With free submissions the submitter has nothing at stake really. They are asking something for nothing. They want a link to their site, but they are not willing to trade anything for it. Its a one-sided bargain. Basic business should tell you that this is not a beneficial trade. So how to make this more balanced in terms of trade?
The answer is tricky, but obvious. You make the free submissions difficult to get approved. They have to be perfect in every way. The details must be written perfectly according to high standards. The site itself must be useful and legitimate as far as one can tell. If these quality standards aren’t met, then the link is rejected. No reason given, no apology. Some submitters may get offended that you rejected their site, but so what! They were asking for something for nothing. They didn’t offer you anything, but want to complain that they didn’t get their free thing… namely, the backlink to their website.
By doing this high-standard approach what you are really doing is creating a beneficial trade instead of a detrimental trade. Accepting large numbers of low-quality websites into your directory for no cost is a poor business model as it serves no purpose. What is there to gain from that? Ad-Sense clicks? email addresses to spam? These are not legitimate reasons to open a link-farm. Its short-term, poor business thinking.
If you want your directory to be a long term business project, then you have to create beneficial trades. Trades that benefit both sides of the deal. How can this be done with a free link? It is accomplished by raising the quality of the links you will accept so that your directory becomes very high quality in its content. It will stand out from the free-for-all link farms or even the lesser directories that are not quite as bad as the link-farms. What this will do, eventually, is make your directory useful to people searching for websites, not just search engines. The reputation will build and search engine companies will take notice. As well, many advocates of high-quality resources on the web will take notice and start linking back to your site because they believe that it has real value.
Demand to be in such a directory will greatly increase. Real people-traffic visiting your site will greatly increase. Now you are in a position to get real advertising income from advertisers who really want to be on your site. You can add more expensive editorial services for fast inclusion or featured websites. You can make your directory one of the small number of highly coveted places to get listed. Now is the big payback!
So, that’s what we are doing here at Zindexica.com. We are becoming even more restrictive with the free links; making it harder and harder to get it. We are also purging the directory from sites we accepted in the past, but no longer will tolerate. We allow free links, but they have to be the perfect listing in all ways, or; it ain’t getting in.

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