Changes to Blue Mushrooms Directory

June 2, 2005 | Posted by Sapphire

About a month ago, I put a directory on this site for webmaster-related sites. It’s had one submissions so far, so I thought perhaps some revamping was in order.

Actually, I took the link down and was about to trash it. Then I started typing an entry about why it didn’t work, and realized there were a couple of things I ought to try before zapping it to oblivion.

First, the DMOZ-farmed links seem to have a bad reputation. People may be afraid the script will eventually be penalized, possibly affecting all sites linked to it. Or they may have some other very good reason I’m just not aware of. Whatever: you can’t fight perception, and that’s where this one stands.

So I’m removing all the DMOZ links, and the legal warning required when I still had them. It’ll be a lot of empty categories, but what the heck.

Second, I don’t like the DMOZ category structure, so I’m replacing it with one that makes sense to me. Yes, I am declaring the Master Poombah Lord of Directories “eh” when it comes to categories. But you know, even if DMOZ’s structure was purrrrfect, it’s designed for a much larger site. I don’t need that.

Third, I’m going to open it up to more things than just webmaster stuff. Niche directories don’t seem to do as well as niche everything else on the web.

It may take me a couple of days to get this all sorted – there are a LOT of DMOZ links. No wonder the database took forever to move.