Semantic Manipulation is one of the most difficult problems to overcome with internet content, more-so within the context of searching.   In the following article we hope to educate you just what this means and just how bad a problem it can be, but also why we think directories can benefit over search engines when it comes to taking control of this phenomenon so widely abused.

So what is Semantic Manipulation?

Semantic manipulation can be defined as the ‘manipulation of words’.   In simpler terms, semantics is basically the way we interpret words and ‘manipulation’ is, well, what it says it is.
The animal Kingdom can give us two instant examples of where words or terms can be semantically manipulated, look at birds as an example of semantics, a ‘cock’ is male bird, a ‘tit’ is a type of bird, both these totally innocent bird related words can quite easily fall prey to semantics, we don’t think we need to expand on this.  It’s the same with terms like ‘teenage sex’ can certainly be misconstrued as something bad when in reality the search might be for a totally innocent reason like the pitfalls of ‘teenage sex’, statistics on ‘teenage sex’, and so on.    Because the word ’sex’ has been mentioned most filters instantly recognize this as a blacklisted word and the search suffers.

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Posted By admin
Jun 17, 2008

Having gone over the fundamentals of how to maintain your directory via editorial standards, and maintenance, its perhaps time we looked at the importance design plays in a directory. I’m going to discuss whether it plays an important part with both the search engines and visitors alike. The expert directory owner will probably already know most of this so the blog is aimed more at the newcomer. If anyone out there is willing to share and has something to add then that would be great as no doubt I’ve probably missed out some.

Before we carry on I’d like to list what I think are a few basic essentials that a good website should take into account when designing no particular order I’ve made some bullet points of what I think makes for a well designed directory.

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Posted By admin
Apr 4, 2008

Having now gone through the basic stages of how we deal with link descriptions, we’ve noted the main points about what constitutes a good description and how to get there, so where do we go from here?

It would have been easy for me to go by memory on what directories make me cringe and to actually name and shame them, but that’s not the purpose of this blog, so before I started on this next phase of editorial standards I trawled through literally hundreds of directories checking out their standards; to help me in this I used possibly one of the most comprehensive directory lists currently available at info.vilesilencer. A big thanks goes out to Dan the owner of this resource which proved invaluable in my research.

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Posted By admin
Mar 20, 2008

We’ve discussed the importance of descriptions and the part they play in the efficacy of a successful directory and also looked in brief how we would create that description, but how far does the editor go to maintaining the editorial integrity of that description?

Well, we’ve looked at 7 keypoints on a good description in the previous blog, but can we go even further to strengthen the creditability of the description and ultimately the creditability of the directory as a whole? The answer has to be yes, for you will never get penalized for quality, and the higher the quality of your directory the better; so how do we achieve this? How far can we go?

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Posted By admin
Mar 15, 2008

I’ve often wondered why so many directory owners fail to show any level of standard with their sites when it comes to editing the descriptions to their links, not all, but most directories out there are poor to say the least. But rather than criticise, (because after all many directory owners are new to the industry, and perhaps don’t recognise the need for a high level of editorial integrity), I thought my time would be better spent sharing my knowledge and offering some of my experience of directory editing which now spans over a decade.

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Posted By admin
Mar 13, 2008

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.

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Posted By admin
Mar 10, 2008

Hello Everyone,

With nearly ten years in the directory industry we’ve seen quite some developments over the years, some good, some bad, and some outright ridiculous. The most activity however has been in the past year or so, which prompted us to think it was about time to rise to the challenge of having our own blog to both compliment our directory efforts and to share, learn and maybe even laugh at what’s going on in this weird and sometimes wonderful world of the world wide web, or maybe even Wacky Wild Web with a focus on the search engine and directory industry.

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Posted By admin
Mar 9, 2008