There’s been plenty of debate on the value of the ‘bidding directory’ and how it fits into the directory industry as a whole, do theybelong, and more importantly do they offer the end user, the E-tailer any value for money? Isn’t bidding for a number one spot on a directory a bit of a lottery? Here’s what we think on the subject.

So what is a bidding directory? The answer is almost in the question, it’s supposed to be a directory (an organised set of websites) that bid for position either on the front page or in the category of their choice in the hope that their bid is higher than anyone else to put their site on the top of the relevant category to the site.

So what’s the problem with this you might ask? Well, firstly, Bidding is no matter how you dress it, ‘Gambling’ and the dangers of this all too clear. Have a look at the Bidding definition from Wikipedia which sums at least one of our concerns very nicely. This being “Bidding up” which is a term that means rising a price for an item by a series of rising bids. It may be unlawful, if done by a group of persons with an interest in rising the price, people can look at these “Bidding directories” and make their own minds up, we have. Only the briefest look at the bidding directories out there makes its pretty clear that there is a pattern forming and the same sites invariably appear at or near the top at what seem to be over-inflated prices.

Without casting aspersions, after all, it would be almost impossible to prove the owner of a bidding directory was in cahoots with another to ‘bid up’ any sites, you’ll just have to make your own minds up on that one, but the fact it can certainly be done instantly brings this type of directory into question, and that can never be a good thing.

So ignoring the obvious inherent risk of using a bidding directory, we now move to the real question of who would really use this type of directory? Would a genuine E-tailer want to? Would for example 10 Jewelry stores bid against each other to get a higher listing in a Jewelry Store section of a directory? Would ANY service really want to get into a bidding war to get top listing would be more to the question? Logic would tell you that as long as your in the top 10 or 20 results your going to get seen anyway, and it most certainly isn’t carved in stone that the link at the top is going to be the first one visited. So why a bidding system? My view is that it’s a gimmick thought up by one or two people who though they could make a fast buck, the vogue phrase at the moment is the ‘Quick Buck Crew’ or ‘QBC’ for short.

To support the theory of bidding directories being in it for a quick buck take a look at this list of List of bidding directories and see what type of sites are listed in them, invariably you’ll see the ‘Directories’ section being the most populated, with the other common factor being that nearly every one of the bidding directories were dominated by casino affiliate link related sites, ironic don’t you think.

And someone mentioned Quality?

It’s usually a case of ‘time will tell’ if something will work or not, and the argument that bidding directories would soon contain quality content has been given enough time to be put to the test. You take a look at the list of examples we provided above and judge for yourselves if they’ve proved any value, we say not in the slightest, if anything they are making a mockery of the directory industry with this repetitive worthless link selling.