Web Directory Reviews

Detailed Review For Alive Web Directory

Alive Directory, a name almost every directory owner is aware of, seems to have featured links in almost every directory. The Google backlink check we performed makes me wonder if Chris is aiming to knock out Dmoz ! We were not able to get an official interview which can be quoted word for word. But will discuss whatever information I was able to extract for Alive.

First impression ,  crossing that off because I been visiting Alive for quite some time now and have seen all the design phases it has been through, cause the project was started in mid 2005, same time I  decided to learn  about webmastering. I have to say current design is way better than the previous one. Some say Alive is quite seo friendly, but since I am not a seo guru cannot comment about seo friendliness but cannot argue against it either, because browsing is easy and does not have too much of Bling-bling !

Alive has nice pagerank both for main page and inner categories, and a price tag of $299 for permanent featured links and $149 or $34.95 /Year for regular links. Alive’s first pagerank was 4 (which was a messed up update since it should have been higher at that point). Chris also believes that latest update is a similar situation and that there was a mixup and it should actually be either 7 or 8. Now, after spending so much on the directory and its promotion, I am actually wondering too how it can only have pagerank of 6 only. I  am not sure whats going on with Google and queries made, but I was surprised  not to find alive directories direct link  for terms like  “alive  directory” , “alive web directory” , or “alivedirectory”.  Only when I typed “alivedirectory.com” in the search was I able to see its link. Is this of concern or just flucations take place all the time when it comes to Google rankings?

Let’s now talk about its submission page. Clear set of guidelines are available for submitting links, also there is preview of each type of link you submit, which I really liked. However, it does not let you submit your keywords and Meta description for your site. For the price Alive charges for links I would expect some extra features and options for submitters.

Alive directory has lots of mods installed,  my favorite one I seen was the daily listing mod,  first time seen  this mod  on any directory. Although there are lots of other directories have it, but this was the first time I actually tried to bother about the same. Other mods available are deep links, SEO friendly URLs, permanent link type, normal link types,category separators, pagination, and homepage featured, as well as various custom tweaks. Now, do these mods help?  Well yes seems to me its working great for Alive.  If you visit the latest links or top links, you will notice boxes around certain listings only, confused I asked Chris why it was like that. And as I expected, the ones with a box are featured submissions.

I noticed that alive uses “family friendly directory” in its Meta description tag, browsing the directory I was however able to find links to Lingerie and other adult sites. Now when asked what they were doing in family friendly directory.  Chris made it clear saying “In my opinion, family friendly means no nudity or sites with adult content. I don’t consider swimsuits and lingerie to be adult content, as kids see that daily on TV, on the beach, etc. As for gambling sites, the site itself does not allow usage for underage. Therefore, I don’t have a problem listing those, as long as they don’t have adult graphics or such and are legitimate, which I work to verify that also via searches and even a phone call a few times. I don’t gamble myself…so, can’t test that way.”  Well Chris, I picked up this weeks flyer for Wal-Mart and hey I noticed there were Lingerie and items for sale. Now, how family friendly is flyers these days? So, I see where Chris is coming from.

When asked about the promotion stratergies and goals for directory, chris mentioned that he tries to promote in numerous different ways. Some of them include, templates and other sponsorship types, software to use with marketing, articles, advertising, and many others. He likes to test a lot of different methods to see what works best, and then uses it on an ongoing basis. 

Now this might of interest/news to many, when asked about where traffic comes from, he mentioned, search engines, other projects, advertising, and various other links from the software. Now, software what’s that got to do anything with alive? Well for those who do not know, but Chris owns Blazemp which is basically an audio/video software.

Alive seems to more than just a directory. Recently only Chris, got a new blog setup, read one  of the  article posted about bloggers mistakes they make,  and I must say how true and down to earth this statement is “However, it seems there are a vast number of blogs selling their credibility.  That is, they write about topics completely unrelated to their blog’s theme in order to earn revenue from advertisers.” –Source
The blog is new but has interesting articles. Now, this makes me wonder, why Chris only recently added the blog, could it be because of the fact that this new trend having a blog on your directory is emerging. Chris mentioned that for directories continuing development and building on strength can be achieved in many ways, including the new marketing blog and blog directory extension. Seems like the blog will be another great success and hoping that Chris will stick to the tips he posted in regards to running blogs.

So, if still after reading the above review, you have this question on your mind “should I than submit to alive?” Well if you got the resources, I see nothing wrong. Chris Hoffman, who lives in North Carolina, US seem to have a good sense of how business should be run. Directory as it is, have no visible issues, nor are there any broken links, or under construction stages.