Dirsensei Web Directory Blog

Ever visited your basement’s lately ? How are those fitness machines doing in the basement ? Are they getting rusty or being used regularly ? Many of us or on households throughout the globe have some fitness machines. They maybe a gift from friends or family or bought by ourselves for the purpose of having a healthy and flexible muscle. Some do use it regularly, some occasionally and some when they have the time or when they just thought of it in that instant moment. These are good and healthy recreations in life. Whether they are tread mills, bowplex, abs cruncher or any of those machines in the market today, it makes our muscles work, healthy and be flexible. But what about our faith ? Do we practice it regularly, occasionally or just when we have the time only. If our muscles and health needs physical fitness workout so should our spiritual faith too. Having the time to practice the spiritual needs of our soul is also needed to enhance it, be healthy and make it function or make it as much muscular as it can be . It takes us more closer to God and keep our faith perfectly healthy and spiritually fit. It brings out a good comparison of a healthy body to a healthy spiritual life here on Earth. It does not matter if what church you belong as long as you practice your faith and exercise it more frequently and doing what is best. It is by far the most needed physical fitness that one can have. Some if not most, people have time for recreation, entertainment, or body fitness workouts in life and I guess we should try to do this to ourselves too on our personal spiritual level. We can enhance and flex our faith by visiting our church regularly to get that fitness our spiritual lives needs. Make time as much as possible. Go to your nearest local church or Faith Fitness Center and get that spiritual faith workout needed. Don’t let that get rusty or throw it away just like the machines in your basement. Joining activities at local churches is one of the best Fitness program you can have. It’s FREE and it brings you closer to the Almighty.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog contacted Rand Fishkin a couple of weeks ago about some remaining issues that are happening or ongoing. Their group went to San Marcos and Rand needed a vacation. After that much needed rest and a quality time spent, he immediately replied and sent this to us in a very timely manner. He also made an unbiased review of Dirsensei Web Directory and gave me some hints about editorial integrity that I surely would keep in mind. Thank You Rand and SEOMOZ for that time and I certainly appreciate it.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: Thanks for accepting an interview from Dirsensei Web Directory Blog. We hope we could clarify some issues clearly between you and the directory industry but first of all let me ask about your recent trip, Was it for business or about that much needed holiday?

Rand Fishkin: I took off with my fiancèe for Vegas, met up with my grandparents and drove out to Arizona and Utah to see and hike some canyons - it was a terrific time, and a well needed vacation. Next week I’m off to Montrèal to keynote a conference.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: To clarify some top issues, when you gave Aviva Directory as an example at your Whiteboard Friday, Why did Aviva came to mind and not some other web directory and what are the search terms that Aviva should rank ?

Rand Fishkin: Aviva’s done a great job of branding themselves and they’ve sent SEOmoz some traffic recently, so I had seen them in our referrals. In terms of specific phrases that Aviva really should be ranking for, I had ID’d a bunch, but here’s a few of them - Go to Avivadirectory, choose something like http://www.avivadirectory.com/Recreation/Motorcycles/ - it’s linked to on the home page. Do some searches:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q…irectory+aviva
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q…ory+racewayatv

Here’s a page that got tons of links - http://www.avivadirectory.com/blogger-law/

Now look at its rankings:
http://www.google.com/search?q=aviva…+needs+to+know

Here’s another one:
http://www.google.com/search?q=aviva+information

and another
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q…ory+blog+aviva

and another
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q…ectories+aviva
(targeting this page - http://www.avivadirectory.com/strongest-directories/)

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: Do you still believe that in spite of the fact that Aviva Web Directory, who has close to a million links and have an authority status, does the search engines has less trust on it ?

Rand Fishkin: Since Aviva was grouped in with many of the 60+ directories who lost rankings, traffic and pages in Google last week, I’d say that absolutely, the search engines have a trust issue with those domains and Aviva specifically.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: As an SEO professional who has attended a lot of SEO conferences do you think Aviva should reconsider on doing some more work for its optimization ?

Rand Fishkin: I’m not sure that it’s optimization that’s a problem for them. From what I can see, Jeff has done a great job building a very good site. The problem is how Google, specifically, perceives directories that sell links - and also how they perceive some of the link building tactics Aviva has used to get PR into its own site. I’m not speaking of the social media work, which is terrific, but of some of the other avenues they’ve used for link acquisition.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: We go now on another topic which is web directories that floats around and more popping out daily. You know very well that there are some quality directories out there that are worthy for end users or submitters, In your opinion how would you determine a site if its quality or not. Would content be an issue? Do you still think the methodology you choose to judge a quality of a directory is correct? There are lots of directories which are blazing in SERPs for every imaginable keyword and have little content. Are they quality directories? This question is also asked by our dear friend John Rang of Best Internet Resource.

Rand Fishkin: I’d tell John that a directory can be incredibly valuable as a link and as a website. Look at sites like Librarian’s Internet Index, the Salt Lake County Library Resource Links Directory, or the resources directory on Education World . These have a very different feel to them than many of the SEO-targeted, junk directories that you see marketed on Digitalpoint or in other SEO arenas. The quality of the sites they link to, the process for application, the staff who’s considering them, the content on the rest of the site - all of these factor contribute to how they’ll be perceived by the engines.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: What’s your opinion about bidding directories and how does Google in your own opinion view this since it is a relatively new phenomenon in the directory market. By checking some listings in a bid directory yourself, does it have useful content or are these primarily aimed at paid links only as any gambling site or a non content site can be included as long as they have the necessary amount to place a bid. Do you think that Google is aware of this?

Rand Fishkin: I actually don’t have much experience with bidding directories, so I’m probably not a good resource to ask about this topic. However, I would say that if you’re considering a purchase on one of them, ask yourself if Matt Cutts, were he to personally visit the site, want to count links from it in the ranking algorithm. If you can solidly answer yes, go for it. If you’ve got reservations, it might not be the best investment.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: Matt Cutts says - backlinks from .edu & .gov are treated like any other links from a trusted site by Google. But it seems you and Bob Mutch consider them as having special values . Can you please explain why is it so? Also, Matt and his Google SE team has taken the feed-back on Paid links seriously and there is a major over-haul of Algorithm looming. I guess they will discount the flow of links juice on paid links and they would no longer affect SERPs. As most SEOs rely on those type of links - do you think this would affect the majority of the SEO community? Question by John Rang.

Rand Fishkin: I would say that almost without exception, links from .edu and .gov sites provide more value than most other links. The problem is that folks assume it’s “because” they’re on .edu and .gov domains - that’s not why Bob and myself recommend them. Rather, it’s because nearly every .edu and .gov domain is well-trusted, well-ranked and provides good link value. The same can’t be said of any other commercially available domain extensions.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: Why is SEOMOZ’s quality directory list private? If it is public-then other directory owners could look up to them and try to improve their own directories. This would in turn help everyone in a broader perspective. Also, are there any improvements for SEOMOZ Page Strength Tool now or in the future ?

Rand Fishkin: The link directory is one of the services that we felt added a lot of value to premium content. I agree that if it were out in the open, it might have more of a community benefit - we’ll certainly consider that going forward. As for Page Strength - we made a recent upgrade about 35 days ago, and reports coming through now have an average accuracy of above 80% - while that’s not great, and we’re always trying to get better, it’s a good step up from the 60% accuracies we were seeing back in June & July. We’ve recently made an investment in more hardware and data-capture abilities, and we’ll probably have another large upgrade sometime in October or November that I hope will bring us close to 95% accuracy.

Dirsensei Web Directory Blog: There are sites I will pick randomly from Aviva’s Strongest Directory List. Would you take the time to review each one and give yuor view on them ? In just a few words or a sentence. Sorry for the long list but I asked for 25 originally and limited it to 20.

Rand Fishkin: Sadly, I don’t have the time to go through these, but I will check out DirSensei.

My first take is that the design is spiffy - I’m a fan of the samurai theme Checking out the new links page, the sites that have been added recently certainly look to be of very high quality, with the possible exception of something like the Peak Level Directory (which looks at first glance like it might be a bit fishy, but I didn’t dig deep, so that’s just a gut feeling).

I checked out a few of the categories linked-to on the home page like relationships - I found this site - active relationships - linked to from that page, and that got me a little concerned, because it looks like pure spam. One of the big ways that engines devalue and penalize directories is by looking at who they link to, and if this site is an indication of other bad stuff that might be in the directory, I’d be a bit worried.

The last thing I’ll check is some rankings - searches like this, this and this make me think that Google is giving a healthy amount of respect to the directory. I don’t think there’s any penalty on it as of right now.

Continuously adding resourceful contents to our Web Directory is always a Top Priority. We have added a good amount of resourceful websites during the past months and are doing it on a day to day basis. Our editors are doing a very fine job in adding those and I must say that they are very well committed. New Categories have been added like Gas and Energy, Physics and some more in other Top Categories. Our long term plan is to add more resourceful topics on categories but not undervaluing it by immediately adding new categories without any content. Last month we launched a Page Rank Checker and this month we have added a new tool for our webmasters resource, The Google Keyword Position Tool.

RipenApples.com, a trusted friend of Dirsensei Web Directory, whose owner a young php programming genius had set up this tool for our web directory. The tool is a great resource for webmasters looking for or searching their specific keywords in Google. It simultaneously bring results in a 4 column orderly manner. It has choices in a drop down menu of any Google data center available and Google country extensions.  An indeed nice tool that can be used.

We hope to bring more tools to contribute to the webmasters resources on the world wide web and we are very proud of this contribution. Our primary aim is still the same and we hope to deliver the best resources that everyone can use. I would like to thank once again the staff and editors for their unending efforts of contribution and a Special Thanks to Anthony of RipenApples.com for his webmaster tool tailor made just for our directory.

The number seven fifty five is gone which lived a long good noble life of 30 years. It was spawned from the powerful bat of an aging slugger named Hank Aaron on July 20,1976. It was occasionally challenged but was never beaten till a cool evening in August in San Francisco Bay. The record of 755 finally perished at the hands of a relentless, most of the time controversial player from the west named Barry Lamar Bonds. Tuesday night PDT 8:51 PM when Barry swinged a 3-2 pitch from Washington Nationals Mike Backsic driving the ball in right-center field in the fifth inning, giving him his 756 career home runs. There was a sell out crowd at the stadium with mostly documenting the bright moment. Flashes of camera and video shots from the crowd, Bonds hitting the ball immediately dropped his bat and raised both his arms in the air as he watched the ball fly with the crowd exploding in unambiguous ecstasy and the game stopping for some minutes.

Bonds circled the bases accompanied by fireworks over the San Francisco Bay and with pointed hands in the sky as he touched home plate. He hugged his teammates with his family brought in the field to wish him of what has been the beginning of a new record to beat in Major League Baseball. Then a surprise for everyone in a stunning twist of the moment when Hank Aaron showed himself in the big screen to congratulate Barry of the record breaking homerun. The tribute left an indication that with no doubt Aaron has given Bond’s record his support and unqualified endorsement. Only 3 players in the Major League and in the last 86 years has held this feat. Babe Ruth first captured the record and surrendered it posthumously to Hank Aaron in 1974 and now it belongs to Barry Bonds.

We would like to take this opportunity to provide some wonderful websites specially dedicated to the growing number of internet users, The Kids and Teens. In almost all schools worldwide, about 80% of youngsters of age 18 and below are starting to use the web. Due to the growing capacity of young internet users, parents and guardians have to teach and monitor the young generation of safe browsing. At Dirsensei Web Directory we would like to contribute and reach out to the best we can of providing entertainment, resources, games, interactive portal, education and other related information for today’s young generation. It is our privilege to help them learn and grow by experiencing to use the vast resources of the internet while surfing it safely.

We have gathered some very informative resources that can be accessible for todays young generation that we deem safe for use and mostly are government and institution approved. These are very fun and educational since it is a way of discovering things with amazing games, photos, music, guides and indeed best even for families to get involve. We would like to share some links and hopefully we could add more in the future.

The public could share websites for the youngsters by using the comment form and placing the name of the site and the website url. We would be checking the validity and child friendliness and upon approval we would add it. You could also help us by linking to our main site to better promote our purposes or place a comment.

Thanks
KidsCom.com - Entertainment and kids portal from ages 4-12.

EPA Environmental Kids Club - Fun and activities while learning about the environment.

White House for Kids - Tour the White House and learn.

Kid’s Space - A children learning portal.

National Geographic for Kids - Play and learn at the same time about animals.

Crayola - Learn about the wonderful colors with fun and activities.

Professor Garfield - Animated learning for children.

Club Penguin - The newest craze of fun for kids.

Neopets - Community of virtual pet owners.

Tokyo Pop - Social networking with anime and manga.

Kaboose - A family interactive website.

Improvements is an ongoing process and has always been in included in our long term planning. Fresh contents and informational websites are added daily at Dirsensei Web Directory. Success is always our top priority, grandiose service to our clients are our everyday goal, safe searching and family friendly websites will always be a part of our commitment and we have joined a campaign for charity as part of our devotion and commitment for the community. Developments are necessary to bring out the best and this is part of our continous growth.

While we are busy doing all these we have forgotten to launch our new addition for our directory. The Page Rank Checker Tool is our new addition and has been doing well in terms of its functions. It was launch and added a week ago but we have never formally announced it and now takes the opportunity. The tool has a rolling content for checking the page rank and on the side has a drop down menu of all data centers. This tool was developed by our friend RipenApples.com and is working on some more.

We do certainly hope that this tool becomes a part of the growing number of tools and we would be glad to introduce more on the days to come. We hope everyone likes it and we would be coming out with more in the future.

Future retirees that maybe are looking a for a perfect retirement home in asia should take a glance at Paradise Philippines. It is a perfect place for retirement as all the amenities are available. In fact the country boast of a friendly atmosphere of mostly english speaking citizens. The country side has white sandy beaches or a vast area of undiscovered forest making it an excellent choice for nature lovers while the city life always boast of the 24 hour night life. While culinary choices vary from eastern to western cultures, the local food variety has its own explicit taste and the availability in city areas are not scarce. Tropical fruits are available with seasonal and the all season home choices like the local bananas and fresh cut pineapples. Its a great choice of place to retire and leisure activities like golf, swimming, night time bingos or just a plain walk in the parks are the dream come true for people looking for an offshore retirement place or for a simple Philippine Travel.

Good news for the Health Category of Dirsensei Web Directory. Bulding a strong web information takes time and effort. While building useful information for the Regional Category our editors have decided to build at the same time the Health Category. They have started building the newly added Conditions and Diseases sub category and placed some valuable information on each sub categories and will do add more on the days to come. We have purposely chose that category to provide Health Care, Tips and Public Awareness as well as knowledge for some of the popular diseases and give out as much information to Public Health.

Our target of providing useful information for the public to access and a well built resource hopefully should bring Dirsensei Web Directory as one of the Top Web Directory for informational websites.