Directory listings: You can ask, but you may not get…

Negotiations, tradeoffs, compromises, all the language of our worlds. I’ve changed the rules subtly on my property investment directory as I’ve found that in Florida, everyone wants Florida in their link title. That’s good SEO, you might even find me recommending it (or not). But as a directory owner you may also find me rejecting your request.

Take the good folks over at McDonald Group GMAC Real Estate who wanted something like “Salt Lake City Real Estate” which I’ll give them here as compo for being my case study. They were onto it enough to read my confirmation email and see that I’d changed their description to be their actual business name and emailed a request for a change.

By email between strangers the exchange was polite. If it had been mates in a bar it might have gone like this…

Hey, thanks for putting up my link
No worries, happy to do it
What was with the title change though?
You didn’t think you were going to get away with that did you?
Yes, you let other people do it
Only because I have to go back and sort them out
Could you tack my words on at the end
What do you think?

Then it could go like this

If I buy the next round will you do it?
No

or

Stuff you, I’ll pull your link then
Go for it, I’ll keep yours though, because any link is a good link and one day you’ll wake up and realise

or

Gotta try, don’t you? Now, found any other good directories lately?

Why the change in my directory rules?

I found that by using tight categories the pages were becoming identical. I also viewed my stats and found I was getting alot of search results where people really were looking for information. What started as a link exchange has grown up. I have one way links and I have alot of categories. I committed to not letting my categories get too large. When they do, I create a subcategory and move listings. This may make the title that was relevant before now look spammy or redundant.

I reject alot of submissions. I’m committed to the niche I’ve established. I cover some New Zealand sites but in general I’m focussed on property investment sites.

A classic site to be rejected is for luxury house fittings, like chandeliers! If you are in a property investment directory you probably aren’t going to be getting chandeliers for your rental properties!