Setting Up A Directory: My Adventures

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

Are you going to only have 10 links per page?

Those designs are representative. I'll be keeping links to about 50 per page.

I never know when you're joking or not.

[Useless]

What he's say is, the font used for free site titles and descriptions looks huge on the page. Really, really big.

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

What he's say is, the font used for free site titles and descriptions looks huge on the page. Really, really big.

*scratches head*

I read what greenguy said dude and understood it. Have i missed something? lol

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by kristian

Those designs are representative. I'll be keeping links to about 50 per page.

I never know when you're joking or not.

I never joke

Like I said, I'd have to see the actual pages, but from what I can see on the examples, the fonts are too big. And it's my humble surfing opinion that spreading things out on multiple pages with such a small amount per page stinks.

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

And it's my humble surfing opinion that spreading things out on multiple pages with such a small amount per page stinks.

I do this for seo reasons, not surfers. Had my site been 10 years old it would not be an issue. With it being brand new I have to be careful about the number of outbound links so I am not seen as a link farm. I actually researched this point a few days ago and it was agreed that 50 free site links per page would be just about ok. The optimum would be around 30 but, as you mentioned, this would look shitty to surfers, so I upped the amount to the maximum of 50. So there you have my humble opinion. I'm not saying I'm right, just that I've researched this and you are the first seo to disagree.

[Greenguy]

Originally Posted by kristian

I do this for seo reasons, not surfers. Had my site been 10 years old it would not be an issue. With it being brand new I have to be careful about the number of outbound links so I am not seen as a link farm. I actually researched this point a few days ago and it was agreed that 50 free site links per page would be just about ok. The optimum would be around 30 but, as you mentioned, this would look shitty to surfers, so I upped the amount to the maximum of 50. So there you have my humble opinion. I'm not saying I'm right, just that I've researched this and you are the first seo to disagree.

1st off, I am FAR from being a SEO

2nd, my thinking has always been that the main goal of my site is to please the surfers so that they will bookmark & come back the next day/week or whenever they surf again.

SEO is fine & I encourage everyone to do some stuff to make their pages better, but not when it interferes with the surfer's experience, because if you never get any SE traffic - or you get it & you loose it for some unknown reason - the bookmarkers are what you will live off of.

SE traffic comes & goes - it's great when you have it & it sucks when you don't - I think every day for my bookmarkers.

[kristian]

Originally Posted by Greenguy

1st off, I am FAR from being a SEO

2nd, my thinking has always been that the main goal of my site is to please the surfers so that they will bookmark & come back the next day/week or whenever they surf again.

SEO is fine & I encourage everyone to do some stuff to make their pages better, but not when it interferes with the surfer's experience, because if you never get any SE traffic - or you get it & you loose it for some unknown reason - the bookmarkers are what you will live off of.

SE traffic comes & goes - it's great when you have it & it sucks when you don't - I think every day for my bookmarkers.

I agree with the principles of your argument. In fact encouraging bookmarkers has been a topic in this thread and a driving force in my design of the site. Believe me, everything I have done so far has had the surfer in mind (read my comments on the topic).

I think you agree that the fewer outbound links per page, the better. If we can agree on that, then my argument is this : I don't think surfers will be all that bothered about 50 links per page. It works ok for penisbot.com on their free site section. My surfers will just have to click a link and they are on to the next page.

I'm not disagreeing for the sake of it. Happy to be proven wrong. I want to get this site right, as you well know.

[Simon]

Hiya Kristian

Nice to see you've made a lot of progress!

I met and had a nice talk with Matt online a week or so ago during a chat (on another network) that was nearly empty due to the time change. After talking with him awhile, I bookmarked his site for future LL projects where I want help instead of taking the do it myself approach. Nice to see that I made a good move there.

I also wanted to say thanks for reminding me of something I always used to do, but had forgotten about with the new XRT project. You and UW talked about it here:

Originally Posted by kristian

...there will be no advertising at the start. ...boomarkers, trades and content are priceless... and surfers will get clean pages to encourage bookmarking.

Originally Posted by Useless Warrior

...something MML... and... GG do when they work a new project. First gain the love of the surfers, then work on marketing to them.

I couldn't agree more with what you're talking about regarding the value of bookmarkers. There are sites I built where I didn't add any promotions for months, sometimes many months. Letting things age and season a bit has worked well for things here too.

On a side note, I saying thanks since I just spent several days going back through all the templates I built when I set up XRT and have now moved the design back to where I first had it, with no banners or button graphics except those of the site itself.

One last thing and then I'm out of here...

Originally Posted by kristian

...encouraging bookmarkers has been...a driving force in my design of the site. ... I think you (GG) agree that the fewer outbound links per page, the better. If we can agree on that, then my argument is this : I don't think surfers will be all that bothered about 50 links per page.

I like the clean design you're using. I like how you're trying to encourage bookmarkers by giving them a clean, well-designed interface that they can use to pull content from your database.

I know you've looked at LOR.

Sorry, but I got a big grin when you said to GG, "I think you agree that the fewer outbound links per page, the better." I just checked the "hardcore" category page at LOR. Not counting links to other category pages, I believe there are around 550 outbound links on that page.

I think GG's using that same basic idea with www.pornmovielinks.com too. I'm sure he'll correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the intent there is to keep making those pages longer and longer until they're just too long (then invent another sub-sub-category).

So --- one thing I'd love to see discussed here are what I'm referring to as the two opposing camps of LL design:

1. Put all the links you can on one long page, using categories and sub-categories to split thing up when you eventually have too many listings on some page(s).

2. Use a "fixed" page size, with "Next Page" style links to move to more content, instead of scrolling down to see more.

Getting a better understanding of "why" someone would choose one design strategy over another could be a very important part of starting a new link list. IMHO

For any LL owners reading this...

Do you think either design has some inherent advantage over the other that you talk about here?

Do you think one design is more surfer-friendly than the other (and why)?


Simon

[kristian]

Hey Simon

I'll say one more thing about design on this subject. Have you ever been to one of those tgps that has a million tiny links on their main page? We all have I guess. I fucking hate them with a passion! When I'm looking for porn I don't want to have to SQUINT to find it or spend minutes scrolling down the page to find it.

One of Matt's biggest jobs was modding the directory structure. I have gone to great lengths to make it easy for surfers to find the porn. You will see when I post up the links. I have also made the links and headings bigger than usual for the same reasons. I could be entirely wrong (surfer -wise) but I'm designing a link list that appeals to my own surfing habits : easy to FIND and easy to SEE porn.

Regarding Matt. Honestly, you have made a great choice. As you can see I am as quick to document poor service (Dickman Design) as I am to document good service, so you can trust my opinion. Without his involvement my little project would still have been in the land of the fucked up.

Righto, I'm off to shower and peddle some more porno. I always look forward to your posts dude. I hope we get some feed back on the issues you raised.