Empty categories.. Good or Bad?

I agree with you, glen! BTW welcome to our community!

[Simon Gooffin]

Originally Posted by Sai_dallas

Simon,
If there is lot of empty categories search engines do not like that.

sure, I completely agree with you Sai but there are some other webmasters in our support forums that have a really great number of empty categories. I created this poll for them mostly to understand it's better to find a compromise of links and categories

[Michele]

Someone mentioned adding some place holder text in the empty categories.

Could we have something like: Be the first to add your link to <category name>!

Where the scripts fill in the category name.

That way it would provide a sentence that has a keyword in it as well as invite visitors to add their site. And make the page look better.

[Simon Gooffin]

Use the following smarty tag to display your category title. {$category.title}

[pgolovko]

Originally Posted by redeye

Don't know what effect it has on SEO, but when I visit a directory and see all those empty categories I feel I've visited an amateur site and don't go back.

Just like going into a supermarket with empty shelves!

Completely agree with you

[woeanl]

Could we have something like: Be the first to add your link to <category name>!

Use the following smarty tag to display your category title. {$category.title}

Hello,
where exactly can we place the {$category.title} ?
In the header.tpl? Or do you mean the Admin area of eSyndicat?

[SkGold]

To have a lot of empty categories is bad from any side:
1. SE defiantly will see them as similar pages - duplicate content.
2. When visitors will arrive to the empty category 2 or 3 times they will close your site and probably will never come back. We are building our sites for the visitors, isn’t it?
3. For webmasters it is very simple work around. Put “Suggest Category” link on every page of your site. See this site as example.

This secret to start successful directory is the same as with forums. It is much, much better to have only 4 categories with 20 listings in each than 100 categories with one listing in each.

[Simon Gooffin]

Originally Posted by SkGold

It is much, much better to have only 4 categories with 20 listings in each than 100 categories with one listing in each.

I agree with you. In this case pages will differ much more and it will not cause any problems.

[wcaa987]

My personal thoughts on the subject.

Worst case, SE's will see empty cats as duplicate content and penalise the site.

Best case, very little if no bennifit to the site.

From an all-round veiw, I think it's best to create a category and populate it with at least a couple of listings. Personally, I try for 5 - 10 listings for the following bennifits:

1. Content. Each listing is feature rich content with keywords about the category. Tip - choose websites with strong keywords in their name and URL.

2. Bait. When a webmaster finds your site and see his competitors listed on your directory, he/she will want to also submit their site to your directory. Nobody wants to be the first to submit to an empty directory - I don't know why, but thats the way it arrears to me.

3. Audience. Why would someone want to vistit your site if there is nothing there? That leads to the next question - why would someone want to advertise on your site if you have no visitors. Reminds me of the chicken and the egg - which came first? By populating your directory with listings, you can draw visitors in via SE's and sell advertising/directory listings.

4. By adding 10 listings (I presume to have 10 listings per page), I can "encourage" a webmaster who submits their site (free listing, and appears on page 2) to pay a small amount of money for a better position on page 1 with a sponsored listing. What a dirty sneak I am!

I see alot of what appears to be abandend web directories. Fresh installs with no thought of design (most with the default template and zero customisation) and empty categories. I wonder what google sees?

I beleive that after launching a website, 50% of my time goes in to external SEO, link exchange, link submissions etc and 50% goes towards internal SEO. Most of the time, I don't bother with with meta keywords & descriptions. I put time in to naming good categories and more importantly givings the cats good descriptions and even more importantly again, providing quality links with keyword rich descriptions.

After all that, I think it's obvious that I am against empty categories. I hope that my post encourages, inspires and motivates some of you newbies to fill up your empty categories.

[thewashman]

I have a few years of SEO experience under my belt and will explain search engines logic to you. When speaking in terms of categories and having sub-categories underneath them. Yes, you want to have a variety of sub-categories and use these sub-category names in the Main Categories keywords and even the Meta Descrtiption. e.g. If my "Business" category has the sub categories "Internet" and "Home Based" I would definitely use keywords like these: "submit,url,link,directory,business,internet,h ome based" and so on. Also having these sub-categories help with adding some content on your pages as well as having links with those words that lead to your site help. Yes reciprocal linking help out big time! The more links the better, although some may not help you, they will never hurt you.