A web directory for Irish websites?

jmcc · 13-12-2003 9:49pm #1

Is it worth doing a proper directory for Irish websites that would be updated and where necessary pruned on a regular basis?

I know that a few directories exist but the problem that I see with a lot of them is that many of the links no longer exist or point to completely different websites now. Most of the existing directories tend to use the ODP ( http://www.dmoz.org ) as a starting point and it is not exactly a good one due to the varied rate at which it is updated. The architecture of the ODP Irish section may be usable though. The addition of sites to this directory would be via automated collection systems (spidering) and via submissions.

Regards...jmcc

nahdoic · 13-12-2003 10:03pm

Very good idea - but how are you going to decide if a website is Irish? IP address of server hosted on? .ie extension?

jmcc · 13-12-2003 10:17pm

Originally posted by nahdoic
Very good idea - but how are you going to decide if a website is Irish? IP address of server hosted on? .ie extension?

All of the above. As part of the whoisireland.com spidering, the IPs of websites are checked automatically to see what country they are hosted in. The .ie extension is an easy start but some non-Irish companies are already using .ie for their Irish subsidary. Though about 50% of Irish websites are hosted outside of Ireland. The figure for .com/net/org/info/biz is about the same. The .ie stuff would give about a 20K starting list of sites and ODP has about 9K.

I'm not sure about mixing Irish interest sites with specifically Irish sites the way ODP does.

Regards...jmcc

nahdoic · 13-12-2003 10:37pm

I wouldn't consider Irish Interest websites - Irish websites. An Irish website to me, would be if the person who owns the site lives in Ireland.

But there are also Irish websites that have a .com/net/org/info/biz and are hosted outside of Ireland though as well. Can you do a whois to find the country of the owner of the domain?

That would be a lot of whois-ing ...

jmcc · 13-12-2003 10:52pm

Originally posted by nahdoic
I wouldn't consider Irish Interest websites - Irish websites. An Irish website to me, would be if the person who owns the site lives in Ireland.

That's essentially the idea. It is often difficult to determine what is Irish and what is not Irish on ODP. That is not to say that Irish interest sites are bad but they are well served by other directories such as ODP.

But there are also Irish websites that have a .com/net/org/info/biz and are hosted outside of Ireland though as well. Can you do a whois to find the country of the owner of the domain?

That would be a lot of whois-ing ...

Yep. The first 45K c/n/o/i/b domains are easy. After that it becomes a problem. Though having access to the zone files for all the major tlds helps in knowing which ones to do the whois for.

Regards...jmcc

nahdoic · 13-12-2003 11:32pm

Originally posted by jmcc
Yep. The first 45K c/n/o/i/b domains are easy. After that it becomes a problem. Though having access to the zone files for all the major tlds helps in knowing which ones to do the whois for.

Cool. There would be no other resource out there like it. I heartily endorse this "web directory for irish websites".

jmcc · 14-12-2003 10:40am

The easy part is the talking about it.

I've wrote the ODP parser, the database converter/page generators in March 2002. However I have to categorise the .ie sites and decide whether to use a standalone domain or the main domain as the URL. Search engines are so much easier than directories.

Regards...jmcc

mneylon · 14-12-2003 5:37pm

It could be an interesting idea, but would require significant resources and time to make it a 'runner'.

jmcc · 14-12-2003 7:49pm

Originally posted by blacknight
It could be an interesting idea, but would require significant resources and time to make it a 'runner'.

The hard part would be reviewing the sites. The trick would be to automate it as much as possible so that this would be the only intensely manual part of the process. I am not sure about giving it a standalone domain though.

Regards...jmcc

irlhost · 14-12-2003 8:54pm

Its a great idea as http://www.dmoz.org has some very old and long dead Irish links in it.

Terminator · 19-12-2003 3:35pm

What do you mean by : "decide whether to use a standalone domain or the main domain as the URL" ???

As for the idea in general - you should definitely go for it. Its good fun and once Inktomi/Google picks up your presumably large index of sites you'll be able to make some money from banner ads, etc.

Some pointers for success :

Use clean urls - nobody wants to be on a directory that uses a cgi jump script.
Don't accept geocities / tripod sites - they usually only last a month.
Give each site its own unique page on your domain.
Let users amend their details if possible - either via confirmation email or login.
Put a link to your top 100 categories/sub-cats on the home page - this feeds PR to each category and this trickles down to subsequent categories.

jmcc · 22-12-2003 12:25am

Originally posted by Terminator
What do you mean by : "decide whether to use a standalone domain or the main domain as the URL" ???

It was a bit unclear. I meant use whoisireland.com or directory.whoisireland.com or even a completely different domain such as irishwebpages.com or irishsearchengine.com. The Google PR thing worries me somewhat and using ODP data as a starting point could show up as duplicate content.

Some pointers for success :
Use clean urls - nobody wants to be on a directory that uses a cgi jump script.

I already do this with the main site because using a cgi jump script would put an unnecessary strain on the server. It averages at 143721 pages impressions a month including spiders from the main SEs. Adding in the Irish directory would probably bump this up by about 90K page impressions per month at least.

Don't accept geocities / tripod sites - they usually only last a month.

Difficult call. Some of these sites may still contain good and relevant information if they still exist. What I was thinking of was a 'freshness' rating that would determine when a page or website was changed or updated. Doing this is actually a lot easier if a search engine is actively spidering the sites. The whole process will be highly automated.

Give each site its own unique page on your domain.
Let users amend their details if possible - either via confirmation email or login.

Probably will do this a similar basis to existing .ie pages on WhoisIreland.com but with a few added things such as indepth reviews or other relative links. The user update is something I have been looking at and it probably will be necessary.

Regards...jmcc

Webmonkey · 22-12-2003 12:43am

interesting idea guys and gurls

are ye going to have a go at it?

jmcc · 22-12-2003 1:14am

Originally posted by Webmonkey
interesting idea guys and gurls

are ye going to have a go at it?

Already working on it.

The Dmoz stuff is already working and parsing. The navigation in the Dmoz can be a bit flakey to implement. The .ie website stuff can be folded in but I have to work out a more accurate classification system than Dmoz's one. Dmoz seems to have put very little thought into the evolution of its directory so categories seem to have accreted like layers of fossils. The html test pages for this project are brutal though. But they are beta pages rather than the real thing.

The technical side of things (spidering/searching/database) is relatively easy but the qualitative issues (what makes a site Irish) will take some work. It will probably be a "work in progress" for a few weeks yet. Of course there is a downside to all this - it could mean the end of Doras as the pre-eminent Irish websites directory.

Regards...jmcc

Terminator · 22-12-2003 5:05pm

Good luck with it! I would go for the standalone url - whoisireland is already well known for whois stuff.

mneylon · 22-12-2003 5:17pm

Originally posted by Terminator

Use clean urls - nobody wants to be on a directory that uses a cgi jump script.

Why not?
A lot of directories, including ourselves do :P

Terminator · 22-12-2003 5:56pm

Search engines such as google and Inktomi prefer clean links and in most cases they won't rate or follow a cgi link. If you must use a cgi jump, the best practice is to have a clean link aswell.

declan_lgs · 22-12-2003 7:25pm

Originally posted by jmcc
Is it worth doing a proper directory for Irish websites that would be updated and where necessary pruned on a regular basis?

definatly

Webmonkey · 22-12-2003 10:00pm

Originally posted by jmcc
Already working on it. The Dmoz stuff is already working and parsing. The navigation in the Dmoz can be a bit flakey to implement. The .ie website stuff can be folded in but I have to work out a more accurate classification system than Dmoz's one. Dmoz seems to have put very little thought into the evolution of its directory so categories seem to have accreted like layers of fossils. The html test pages for this project are brutal though. But they are beta pages rather than the real thing.

The technical side of things (spidering/searching/database) is relatively easy but the qualitative issues (what makes a site Irish) will take some work. It will probably be a "work in progress" for a few weeks yet. Of course there is a downside to all this - it could mean the end of Doras as the pre-eminent Irish websites directory.

Regards...jmcc

Cool cool

Good luck with it

mneylon · 23-12-2003 9:22am

Originally posted by Terminator
Search engines such as google and Inktomi prefer clean links and in most cases they won't rate or follow a cgi link. If you must use a cgi jump, the best practice is to have a clean link aswell.

Not entirely true, but anyways..

yellum · 23-12-2003 10:05am

Will the site be looked after by Volunteers like Dmoz ?

jmcc · 23-12-2003 8:09pm

Originally posted by yellum
Will the site be looked after by Volunteers like Dmoz ?

Initially, I will be doing most of the work on setting up the structure and getting it going. However volunteer involvement is something that the directory will need. The trick in making it all work smoothly is to have as much automation as possible with review work being done by reviewers.

Regards...jmcc

louie · 28-12-2003 1:45pm

So what are you going to do about the Irish owned websites as .com, .net...?

There is a lot more of them on the net then .ie.

For instance, your own website is .com

jmcc · 29-12-2003 6:33am

Originally posted by louie
So what are you going to do about the Irish owned websites as .com, .net...?

There is a lot more of them on the net then .ie.
For instance, your own website is .com

I know - I have been tracking Irish domain ownership for a few years.

The stranglehold of IEDR mismanagement has nearly squeezed all the life out of .ie cctld. There is far more vitality in the Irish owned com/net/org domains. It is not uncommon to see about 1000 new Irish owned CNOs a month with about 250-500 being deleted. The lower cost of getting a .com and the availability of decently priced webhosting is having a positive effect on the Irish internet industry.

The main criteria for a site to be included is that it is Irish owned, is accessible and can be added to a category (or a newly created one).

Regards...jmcc

smash · 06-11-2012 3:06pm

whiskez1 wrote: »

you can try local listing web directory: http://www.thebestofireland.ie

And it only took you 9 years to get it done... :pac:

A web directory for Irish websites?

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