Empty categories.. Good or Bad?

[thewashman]

One more thing. Simon, I find that it would help you if you manually ad some links in each categories. What I am doing is looking for non-profits, and informational web sites to add in these empty categories. This should by all means help you with any empty categories.

[SkGold]

It is very good suggestions from wcaa987.

Originally Posted by wcaa987

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

Just a small correction. The duplicate content is not a penalty; it is just not a good practice.

[Simon Gooffin]

Completely agree with wcaa987 & thewashman
We never keep our directory categories empty at all.

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.

In some seo resources I read HTML code also affect site position or to be more true the percentage of real content in total html.

[thewashman]

Well I know that I would not leave my keywords blank. This can be used to optimize each page for the category title, and make it look like a different page to search engines. So when people use search terms like: Submit Site to "specific category". Your site is likely to show up if your category, description and keywords match his search terms. I know that people looking for directories usually search for a specific kind of directory. Oh yeah, some people use submission assistant programs usually this program will find them directories to submit to by searching for these terms. Submit,URL,Directory,Link,"Their sites main keyword" so if their site uses "Chat" as their main keyword, their submission program searches for Submit,URL,Directory,Link,Chat. Then gives them a list of however many directories they asked for. So if your directory is not on to of Search Engines there is a good possibilty it will still be found by submission programs if your category name, keywords, ans description are set right.

[lumi]

reasons to write a bit unique content for each category:

1. even with e.g. {$category.title} you have 95% the same content than all the other empty categories

2. looks good for visitors

3. spider robots are greedy to grab the content

4. even with a few entries is your category still more unique

only mmy 2 cent but with my 568 categories it's a big job so those tips are only theory

lumi

[pipc01]

I am pleased I have found this thread, having created another directory of directories, I submitted it everywhere possible, including a very expensive directory, who spat me out, I assume because I was the same old same old. Having felt at first bitter, I then decided to look and improve my site. So I have started writing a good? article on each catagory page, (before I found this thread) knowing already that google loves fresh content and pages with good keyword content. I have learnt from this thread to go add some directories free, in order to get rid of the ghost feel factor, thank you all.

[ganodan]

Hi,
I would like to say that for a great script, not many are using it to it's best, as most of the site's I have looked at can be deemed as link farms.

Discription and Meta: Discription are the most important start to any categorie, not having links in it does not matter, as long as the page discription has some content, most of the sites I have looked at have nothing in them, hoping for someone to come along and add their link.

The only way that most are getting listing is from this forum, there is no way that they will be found any other way.

Suggestion: Ad a discription the meta can be the same, add keyword from the discription, however this is not as important as the discription as Google only reads the discription, then bases the keywords from the first paragrath, thou Yahoo & MSN looks for Meta: keywords.

As I am Australian, I will make a suggestion as to an Australian related categorie, and regardless of links not being in it, seach engines will not see it as a empty categorie.

Title: Australia

Discription: Australia is also known as the land downunder, Australia has many natural wonders including the Great Barrier Reef, feel free to suggest a categorie related to Australia or add a link for review.

Meta Discription: add same as above.

Keywords: australia, downunder, natural, natural wonders, australia downunder, barrier reef, reef, great barrier reef, barrier reef australia, suggest link, add link,

With that added, your Australia categorie can now be picked up and indexed by search engines, where it would be over looked with just with a title "Australia", that includes visitors looking add there link.

Follow this rule to all your categories, as I say "Rome was not built in a day, BUT, it was built on a plan"

If you plan to get the best out of this great script, Putting “Suggest Category” link on every page of your site, will not do it.

My directory is still some time away before going live, just adding a few words makes a big differance in the end.

I hope this helps.
Dan.

PS: Great Script, once you learn how to drive it

[ganodan]

PPS: Anyone wanting to add an Australian link to their directory, please feel free to add mine.

Title: Let's Connect Australia

Link: http://www.letsconnect.com.au/

Description: Let's Connect Australia, Holiday & Accommodation Directory Guide, looking for accommodation, tours, cruises, real estate, fishing the Great Barrier Reef, Australian holiday & travel, news & community information.

Mail: teamgano1 & yahoo - com - au

Code: Thank You

[digitalfog]

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!

I agree 100% with this. I still think too much emphasis is given to PR when webmasters are trying to establish or maintain a site. It's all about traffic - and big traffic doesn't necessarily mean a high PR ranking.

We have our share of websites that have a very low PR. Doesn't bother me a bit because some of these sites receive much more traffic and are more profitable than other sites with high PR's.