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Building an Article Directory Website

petermeadit

Top Contributor
Just looking for some input form the forum as I have never done this before.

A client has approached me to build them and Article Directory Website. Simple to do the Article Directory Website itself. But I would like to know more about the SEO considerations and management of the submissions.

Like first thing comes to mind is low quality outbound links from articles, how will that effect the site and also the shared hosting?

Secondly, if you wanted to review each post, to ensure some quality for the articles on the site, how could that be done on a big scale, for a large number of submissions?

Your experience and opinions would be much appreciated.
 

Ashman

Top Contributor
That's a good question. To start I would implement a robust user registration system where you collect as much info about prospective users as possible. That way you at least get a good idea of the type of people using the system and can quickly eliminate possible spammers.

Low quality outbound links could be controlled by using a "no-follow" configuration or only allow plain text article submissions for some users until they reach a threshold of article submissions to show that they are genuine users.

In general I think someone would have to review all content manually to maintain the integrity of the site, similar to what Chris and the Admin's do here on DNT.
 

petermeadit

Top Contributor
That's a good question. To start I would implement a robust user registration system where you collect as much info about prospective users as possible. That way you at least get a good idea of the type of people using the system and can quickly eliminate possible spammers.

Low quality outbound links could be controlled by using a "no-follow" configuration or only allow plain text article submissions for some users until they reach a threshold of article submissions to show that they are genuine users.

In general I think someone would have to review all content manually to maintain the integrity of the site, similar to what Chris and the Admin's do here on DNT.

Thanks Ashman, I have seen some WordPress plugins that can help with some of this.

So essentially, your still looking to build a quality website weather it is a directory site or any other?
 

Ashman

Top Contributor
So essentially, your still looking to build a quality website weather it is a directory site or any other?

I try and use that strategy no matter who the client is or what the project entails. It will always be difficult to control content on Web2.0 sites but if you get the basics sorted out from the beginning you should be well placed to meet your clients' expectations.
 

petermeadit

Top Contributor
I try and use that strategy no matter who the client is or what the project entails. It will always be difficult to control content on Web2.0 sites but if you get the basics sorted out from the beginning you should be well placed to meet your clients' expectations.

Great advice Ashman, thanks :)
 

helloworld

Top Contributor
I can;t really answer your questions directly but I've used this for an article site before http://www.softaculous.com/demos/ArticleSetup

I'd probably recommend the paid version which isn't much.

The problem I had were that spammers caught on and yeah, added their articles. This would have been great 5 years ago as they went off and built a shit load of links, like seriosly shit LOADS.

Some of the links were really odd as well, they just pointed to the home page. I guess they saw it as a good opportunity to build the sites rank for .au.
 

findtim

Top Contributor
a sideline suggestion is making SURE the client knows what they are in for down the track, don't do anything until they agree to be charged for your advice/research whether they go through with the project or not.

i've wasted a lot of time in the past checking out the viability of projects for clients to have them say " ahhh , ok we won't do that, thanks anyway "

chris sent me this link and i think its a good look based on what you are about to do.... maybe.
http://vimeo.com/22053820

no doubt you have already watched it, tim
 

petermeadit

Top Contributor
i've wasted a lot of time in the past checking out the viability of projects for clients to have them say " ahhh , ok we won't do that, thanks anyway "

chris sent me this link and i think its a good look based on what you are about to do.... maybe.
http://vimeo.com/22053820

no doubt you have already watched it, tim

Ahhh... that is a great vid, very Americanized, but thanks for the referral.

However, I was more interested in the SEO considerations. Like, do I need to vet each and every article submitted manually, to check each outbound link so that you don't end up building a huge big SPAM SITE instead of a good quality Article Directory Site. Obviously, it is a waste of time to build a spam site, just to get Google slapped. Also it might drag down other sites on the shared hosting etc.

A site like this will end up having many thousands of pages, so I think the site will need to publish content very frequently to establish itself as a content authority.

Also I am interested if there are any tools that can be used to help review articles before publishing them?
 

findtim

Top Contributor
Also I am interested if there are any tools that can be used to help review articles before publishing them?

i'd be looking towards one of those plugins that scan the universe for people republishing your work, then kinda use it backwards, i mean use it to ensure your site isn't getting feed these duplications.

i seen them but sorry don't have a link

tim
 

Ashman

Top Contributor
Secondly, if you wanted to review each post, to ensure some quality for the articles on the site, how could that be done on a big scale, for a large number of submissions?

Peter, not sure if you found a solution yet but today I recalled using Mollom some time ago.

Mollom is a web service that analyses the quality of content posted to websites. This includes comments, contact-form messages, blogs, forum posts, etc.

The plugin is available for Drupal & Wordpress CMS's.
 

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