The past, present and future of the Web directory

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Just a few years ago, for a newly released web site, the first requirement for more access was to be included in the top-level Web directory. By providing reliable human search results to the Internet, Yahoo,about,looksmart and DMOZ were all at the same time sharing the Internet. The information in the network directory has been carefully selected and edited by editors, and a clear classification is made by category. So at that time the network directory seems to be the information on the Internet classification, as well as the most convenient way to find information on the Internet.

The development of Internet leads to the problem of expansion
But with the astonishing pace of development of the Internet, whether you want to buy a website, or build a website yourself, or manage the site, it becomes easier and cheaper. Small to personal homepage, big to E-commerce shop and even internet portal site, the site has become almost our daily routine. This "explosive" development of the Internet has made the network directory fade.

Imagine, for a network directory editor, even if he can handle hundreds of new site review and collection work one day, but because the Internet content is too much, so even a full range of information network directory can not display all the Internet information. As a result, there may be thousands of links even under a minimal Directory category page.

DMOZ is one such example. The purpose of its establishment and open source is very similar, in the spirit of a "I for everyone, everyone for me," the dedication to create technology and data, sophisticated technology and free use of these data and technology-–dmoz still maintain its free collection of operating mode, The catalogue is maintained and developed by a large number of volunteer editors. Due to the submission process for the website, it has caused dmoz growth. The various categories under DMOZ become so large that editors simply cannot manage what is already in the category, and the review of newly submitted sites slows down, making DMOZ's information obsolete. In addition, you cannot even provide enough resources to review the inaccurate content and invalid links that appear in the directory. Worse, because of the increased server storage space and bandwidth that must lead to additional technical overhead, the result will be an incomplete network directory that is not only slow, but with bad links and disorganized content.

The dilemma faced by the network development is bound to lead to two unique developments in the network catalogue market-one is the paid collection mode and the other is the need for search technology.

Paid and collected in a timely and
In order to meet the requirements included in the user requirements, some network catalog launched a paid collection mode. Both Yahoo and LookSmart are in the same footsteps. Customers simply pay them a nominal fee to be included. As a result, sites with less or less value have finally had the opportunity to avoid the scrutiny of web directory editors and make their sites a part of the catalogue. The main benefit of this system is that it allows editors to focus on sites that are more likely to be included. The disadvantage is: there are some sites, for users of high value, but because they do not have to pay the financial budget or motivation, so although the quality, more brilliant, but the catalog editors may never be included.

The improvement of Internet search technology
The initial search technology not only developed slowly, the search results were not accurate, but also the scope of the index is very small-so at that time, these "first generation search engine" on the directory structure is almost no threat. But the search technology is not only developing, but it has finally realized that it can index and generate more relevant search results without human intervention. Compared to the directory structure, search technology is not only more aggressive in search results, but also very inexpensive. Only a few years time search technology in the development of a qualitative leap. Search results are more accurate and comprehensive, and the results can be filtered to provide more appropriate user search results, which makes the old directory structure even more pale. It can be said that the continuous progress of Internet search technology has led to the decline of the network directory dynasty.

The evolution of Modern network catalogue
Today, the most successful web directories are those that use the PPC (paid-click) mode of operation, such as the famous business directory Business.com and Verizon's online yellow Pages superpages.com, the second-largest communications company after At&t. In general, for PPC operating mode of the network directory, as long as it is in line with the requirements of the site, once submitted, its URL, products and services can quickly appear in the directory corresponding to the category.

The autocommit and auction systems take into account the efficiency of search indexing, which makes these directories more scalable than those that are manually edited. Because PPC is built on the basis of Pay-per-click, advertisers are bidding on the target, so these categories will always be better, and almost no outdated list of sites.

However, although the search results of PPC catalogs are highly correlated, they are not assailable. The long-term burden of this type of advertising is often the result of very significant advertising, or very lucrative, or those targeted to specific areas of the site.

Localization trends
Perhaps the presentation of local information is the best chance for the directory structure to survive. Although search engines can provide search results on Web sites, manual editing of directories has the unique ability to include information content that is not on the line. This kind of manual edited directory system may not meet the needs of global search. But don't forget, localization itself is highly directional, so as long as an editor can easily identify and include locally relevant information in the corresponding local directory branch of its responsibility.

The first mainstream application of the concept is Yahoo's getlocal yellow pages.

Yahoo Online Map (Yahoo! MAPS) System integrates the "SmartView" technology is an advanced application of this concept. SmartView Yahoo's map features and search technology, so that users through the Yahoo map can be seen by the visual way to conduct online local search. When a user browses to a map of a town, continent, or region, a navigation menu appears, allowing users to choose from a set of businesses and services that are displayed in turn by icon in the map. The user simply scrolls the mouse over the icon, and the name, address, phone number, and a drive link appear. The "directory" of this feature is likely to dominate future local "search".

Concluding
A modern research tool that is essentially useless if it cannot contain all the canonical resource information in a given content area. One of the major hurdles to classifying online catalogs is that, because there is no proper automated retrieval system, the network directory cannot exhaustive list all of the online resources.

Maybe the machines will never replace humans, but there are already a lot of apps that are far more performance-intensive than manual editing catalogs.